The Staten Island Ferry has been a municipal service since 1905. It carries over
19,000,000 people a year. It runs between the St. George Terminal in Staten Island, and the Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan. The Staten Island Ferry runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can ride it
365 days a year. It is the most reliable form of mass transit in New York City. It is on schedule 96 percent of the time. It is the only direct form of transportation between
Staten Island and Manhattan. The 5 mile, 25 minute ride also provides a majestic view of New York Harbor and a no-hassle, even romantic, boat ride, for free! One guide book calls it " One of the worlds greatest ( and shortest ) water voyages." From the decks, you can see The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Governor’s Island. You can also see
Manhattan skyscrapers and many different bridges such as the Verrazzano Bridge and the Bayonne Bridge. During a normal week, five different ferries run each day. They carry about 70,000 passengers a day and they make about 104 trips. On weekends, three boats are used and they make about 64 trips each weekend day. The original ferries used on the New York waterways were white. They were then changes to a reddish-maroon. Then they finally were changed to municipal orange so they could be seen in heavy fog and snow. They original ferries used steam but in
1980 they started using __________???? Today, passengers ride on the Staten Island Ferry for free. When the ferry began there was a 5 cents fare. In 1972, the fare was raised to 10 cents. The fare was raised again in 1975 to 25 cents. In 1990, the fare went up to 50 cents. Finally in 1997, the fare for walk on passengers was eliminated. There are currently 11 ferries that are used today. They are the John F. Kennedy, the American Legion II, the Governor Herbert H. Lehman, the Andrew J. Barberi, the
Samuel I. Newhouse, the