Advocates are once again calling on Mayor Eric Adams to bring ferry service to Canarsie, amid residents’ frustration over a persistent lack of reliable transportation options in the east Brooklyn neighborhood.
Supporters of expanded service will rally on Sunday afternoon to needle the Adams administration on the issue, years after ferry service was expanded under Mayor Bill de Blasio — without a stop in Canarsie.
As Brooklyn borough president, Adams repeatedly called for ferry service to be brought to Canarsie, where residents have long struggled with a dearth of reliable transit options into other parts of the city like Manhattan.
“To say he’s for transit equity, to say that Canarsie deserves a ferry, and now being in office almost finishing his first term [as mayor] and not delivering on that promise? It is really frustrating,” said Jibreel Jalloh, founder of the Canarsie-based advocacy group the Flossy Organization.
Jalloh said advocates and other Canarsie residents who have been pushing for ferry service have gotten the same answer to their concerns — that the city was not currently looking to expand ferry service in the interest of sustaining the overall system. But Jalloh remains unsatisfied.
“It doesn’t really jive with the current reality of opening up multiple stops in transit-rich neighborhoods, when you have a transit desert like Canarsie that’s yearning for more ways to get around in reliable ways,” Jalloh said.
A spokesperson for the mayor did not immediately comment.
As borough president, Adams spoke vocally in favor of ferry service to Canarsie, deeming it an equity issue that deserved the city’s attention. “My pursuits of ferry service to Canarsie — a community in true need of transit equity — as well as a ferry connection between Brooklyn and Staten Island are as strong as ever,” Adams said in a 2019 statement accompanying de Blasio’s expansion of ferry service.
But residents say Adams, who during his run for mayor in 2021 received a deep well of support from east Brooklyn voters and others in areas with few public transit options, has fallen short of his pledges to do what he can to remedy the issue.
“The real inequity here — if you look along northern Brooklyn, it’s dotted with stops. Williamsburg really has two stops in their neighborhood,” Jalloh said of ferry service.
At a town hall in February, Adams echoed his previous support for ferry service to Canarsie, though he did not say when it might materialize as a neighborhood transportation option.
“If we’re able to expand, to have a ferry out here, it’s a real win,” Adams told a student who asked about the potential for ferry service to Canarsie. “Areas like here — out in parts of Queens, with our transportation deserts … being able to expand and get our next ferry out here would be a huge W for us, but we’ve got to make sure we stabilize the system that we have in place. It’s relatively new.”
Maria Torres-Springer, who serves as Adams’ deputy mayor for housing, economic development and workforce, said the administration was aware that it has been a longstanding issue for the Canarsie community.
“When we look at landings to determine whether a stop should be in a community, there are a number of different criteria, including what the ridership might be, whether it is feasible technically to do it, whether you might actually see savings in travel times,” she said.
But Torres-Springer told attendees that there were no current plans to expand the ferry system.
“But right now, we’re focused on stabilizing the system, making sure that it is strong, and financial stability,” she added. “If there are expansion plans, we’re going to engage everyone in this room, because we know it’s been a question over the years.”