Ecosystems and wedding venues

A local example of non-planning worth calling out is one where the pain is felt through personal touch points – I am talking about the efforts to transport passengers by ferry into New York’s central business district from where I live, on the waterfront in a town about an hour outside of “midtown”.

In their infinite wisdom, in a true example of “build it and they will come”, the local municipality spent upwards of $7 million on a Ferry Terminal. After further backsliding, there are no responses to numerous Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from possible ferry operators.

As ferry operators throw up their hands in frustration (the economics just don’t work if one takes a conventional approach), the local municipality hires a consultant.

The new guy’s considered suggestion is that a ferry serving my area could haul passengers to the Bronx (yes, an “outer Borough”) where they would transfer to boats
managed by an operator hired by New York City’s Economic Development Corporation, or EDC, all while paying an exorbitant fare.

The passengers would then take another boat, downtown to the business area (where the ferry landings are not adjacent to many office buildings – but that’s another problem for another article).

A different agency, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ- well known to Port Strategy readers), is re-doing LaGuardia Airport (LGA), directly on the ferry route between downtown and my town. Early on, there was talk of a ferry link to LGA, but that was quickly thrown under the bus.

So, while all these agencies are not talking to each other, look at a map and imagine how my local area’s waterfront could be a staging area for all those airport ferries (offering transportation, sans transfers, at little incremental cost since air travelers would pay full fare).

The planners, all within 30 miles of each other, evidently, have no such imagination. If all of this were not true, it would be an amusing maritime satire. But, sadly, this is a true tale of planners who simply do not think outside of their silos.

Of course, the situation with passengers (though it would apply to cargo) is more nuanced than I describe it, but the bottom line, top line, whatever…it’s a failure of not looking at the bigger picture, or in the 2019 parlance, the ecosystem.

Meantime, I expect that the local guys will soon be looking at re-purposing the Ferry Terminal as a wedding venue, with waterfront views and all – its highest and best use. I just hope that potential caterers respond to the RFPs, unlike the ferry operators.