Friday, May 20, 2011

LOCAL: An Alternative to the G?

If you're from Brooklyn, I'm sure I've got your attention. I'm sure you, like me, think the G train is just short of being worthless.

Well, New York Shitty has coverage walking of a ferry service beginning next month and walks away unimpressed:
As a Greenpoint resident— and while it might be nice to, say, be able to go to Governor’s Island— I cannot honestly see how this service is going to alleviate our transportation woes in any real, lasting way. What’s more, it is rather expensive. In the case of India Street in particular it does not seem to be very well thought out. As stated, the location of this stop is not close to public transportation, there really isn’t anything in the way of sites of interest to be found nearby and being rather desolate the concerns about security which were raised are quite salient. In this respect I found the prospect of having an automated machine selling tickets somewhat troublesome; I lay odds this device will be both vandalized and looted on a routine basis. Lastly, I found it rather telling that the stops for this ferry were placed at locations where the city wants to foster economic development. This would certainly explain why it doesn’t go to 14th Street (which I suspect a number of folks hereabouts would find quite useful). Sorry folks, I cannot get terribly excited about this.
I agree that the map of where it goes looks strange and wrong -- in a way, it kind of reflects the poor foresight that made the G line practically useless.

However, I'm a Williamsburg-ite and not a Greenpoint-ite, and therefore having a new alternative route to get to DUMBO (rather than taking the B62 and then walking through past the projects for maybe 20 blocks) would be kind of nice. I wonder how adjustable these ferry paths are, and how long it takes to travel.

(Apologies to non-Brooklyn folks who found this kind of boring).