STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- This borough is part of the city that never sleeps - and its public transit service shouldn't take catnaps.

Staten Island's City Council delegation is set to introduce a bill next month that would mandate nobody ever wait more than 30 minutes for the Staten Island Ferry -- be it in the middle of the night during the week or early in the morning on a holiday.

"The goal is to get more and better ferry service -- the legislation is the tool to bring that about," Councilman James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn) said Tuesday in his City Hall office.

The bill -- to be introduced next week by Oddo, Councilman Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore) and Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore), and to be formally announced at a press conference Thursday afternoon -- would keep rush-hour service at its current levels. A

CUT THE WAIT TIMESA A

But it would eliminate the one-hour wait times commuters encounter after 1 or 2 a.m. during the week and after 7 p.m. on Saturdays and Sunday. During those times, the boat would run every 30 minutes.

It's not the first time it has been proposed -- then-Councilman Michael McMahon led the charge for another bill to mandate service at least every 30 minutes in 2004. The Council passed it -- over a mayoral veto -- in 2005. Oddo was part of the Staten Island delegation at the time.

Bloomberg argued at the AAtime that the Council was interfering with his executive powers to run the Department of Transportation. To avoid going to court, the administration and the Council reached a compromise -- increasing service during rush hour and weekend mornings, and adding a 1 a.m. boat.

Oddo said the issue wound up back on his radar after he was approached by members of the St. George Civic Association's Ferry Riders Committee.

"We started talking about the mayor's race, and these fleeting moments of leverage I often refer to," Oddo said. "We said, 'You know what, let's try to get the word Staten Island Ferry into the lexicon of the mayoral race.'"

The last effort to increase ferry service also played out during a mayoral campaign -- and enjoyed broad support in the Council and particularly from then-Speaker Gifford Miller, who was eyeing a mayoral run.

"It's not really coincidence that we're replicating that model, and we are speaking to the Bloomberg administration to some degree" with the bill, Oddo said, "but we're really speaking to the mayoral candidates and the next administration."

He couldn't say whether it would get traction before he leaves the Council at year's end.

"Does Speaker Quinn embrace it, do we run quickly with it, I don't know," Oddo said. "Suffice to say I'm going to push every button, I'm going to use every ounce of leverage that I think exists."

While Bloomberg wasn't on board with increasing ferry service back in 2005, Oddo opines there could be new reason for more flexibility: The development of the New York Wheel, of which Bloomberg has been a major supporter.

The developers of the wheel have said they expect most of its millions of riders to arrive by the Ferry, an attraction in its own right that already draws 2 million tourists a year.

"I'm not sure how you can say with one breath how confident you are about the success of the wheel, and then with the next not acknowledge that you have to increase ferry service," Oddo said.

As for the question of whether the Council can supersede the mayor's role in overseeing the DOT, which runs the ferry, Oddo said he's going to consult with McMahon about his battle on the same front.

But the administration has argued that plenty of things the Council has tried to do are illegal, Oddo said.

"That shouldn't stop us in the Council from doing the right thing," he said. "And I'm not afraid to let the courts decide what we can and can't do."

Oddo said one step will be seeing how many people sign on to co-sponsor the bill -- a measure that has taken on more importance in recent years, with Ms. Quinn facing pressure to allow votes on bills with a great deal of support. And the Staten Island delegation will have some leverage, Oddo said, with their votes for the next Council speaker at stake.

"I think Debi and Vinny will talk to those candidates," Oddo said.

The proposal to increase ferry service comes just a week after the Independent Budget Office offered the possibility of cutting late-night ferry service altogether, replacing it with buses, to save more than $4 million.

In an SILive poll, 80.56 percent of respondents nixed that idea a bad bet.

Oddo said the delegation has no truck with buses, it's going in the opposite direction -- and wouldn't want to cede any of the borough's transit service. While it's a quaint trip for tourists -- and often singled out by Bloomberg as a great cheap date -- for Islanders, it's a vital mass transit link, he said, that should be available when people need it.

"We're part of the city that never sleeps," he said.

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