Ferries, trains, cars helped Islanders through
transit strike
Almost half of the borough's workers
have jobs on the Island, and most of them drive to work
Staten Island Advance - Saturday, December 24,
2005
It's a common lament that Staten Islanders have some
of the worst commutes in the country.
So where was the chaos on the Island when a strike
shut down the city for 60 hours this week?
Part of the peaceful outcome here came about because
two critical pieces of the borough's transportation infrastructure
-- the ferry and railway -- are operated under different contracts
and authorities than New York City Transit, whose workers went on
strike.
Still, the Island's biggest advantage during the
strike may have been its chief transportation flaw: Only about 28
percent of Staten Islanders use public transportation to get to
work, about half the citywide average. So when the strike hit the
city, most Islanders hit the gas pedal.
"We happen to have a much lower transit dependency,"
said Jonathan Peters, a professor at the College of Staten Island
who studies the borough's transportation network.
"There's a whole segment of Staten Island that is
relatively unserved by mass transit. The fact that there wasn't as
much impact here just highlights the fact that there's not as good a
level of service [on Staten Island] as in the other boroughs."
Embedded within the Island's commuting population
are several hidden demographic layers that help explain why
city-designated carpool staging lots sat virtually empty, why Island
cabs saw only a modest run on cars and why ferry ridership went flat
even as the number of Railway riders swelled by 75 to 90 percent.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Staten Islanders
tend to work on Staten Island. According to the 2000 Census, a
potent 45 percent, or 86,197 of the borough's 191,145 workers, don't
leave the Island for their jobs. And almost all Island households
have at least one car.
"If you work and live on Staten Island, you largely
travel by private automobile," Peters said.
The number of Islanders who work within the borough
is about 18 percent more than the estimated 53,249 who commute to
jobs in Manhattan, the majority of whom are among the 30,000 or so
daily ferry passengers.
great number of ferry commuters work within walking
distance of Whitehall Ferry terminal, and with PATH train service
running from Jersey City and the World Trade Center, there was at
least some means for others to reach their Midtown offices, however
circuitous the route.
With local buses sidelined during the strike and
with high-occupancy vehicle parking only at the St. George Ferry
Terminal, ferry commuters got rides to the ferry terminal or to
Staten Island Railway stations.
The Railway demonstrated its reliability even as
crowds swelled at times to between 75 and 90 percent of the ordinary
rush-hour loads.
Railway chief John Gaul and his employees got a
surprise visit yesterday from Assemblyman Vincent Ignizio (R-South
Shore) and City Councilman James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn), who
commended them for their efforts this week.
Contingency planners will never be able to tally
exactly how many workers chose to sit out the strike at home, but
absenteeism is the likely reason why ferry ridership held steady
even as some of the borough's 18,000 daily express bus riders made
for the ferry.
Livery cars, meanwhile, saw only a modest uptick in
passengers, some of which may have resulted from the Christmas rush.
The strike "wasn't that much of an ordeal," said Joe
Scalice, president of the Staten Island Livery Association, who
estimated that livery service climbed about 15 percent during the
strike.
"We came through unscathed," he said.
By Seth Solomonow
Reprinted here with permission
from the
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