Mr. Harrington said he was usually one of only four or five people on the first boat leaving the North Williamsburg dock at 6:55 a.m. on weekdays. But in contrast with his quiet commutes, he added, “I’ve been on on the weekend when it was packed.”

According to data supplied by city officials, nearly 350,000 people have paid to ride the ferries since late June, far more than the 134,000 they had projected. On weekdays, the number of riders has averaged 2,862, almost double the forecast of 1,488.

The weekday riders have not all been commuters, either. On Friday evening, two visitors from Zurich, Michael Luetscher and his 13-year-old daughter, Bignia, rode from Pier 11 near Wall Street to the Greenpoint apartment they had been staying in all week. They were returning from shopping and checking out the Occupy Wall Street demonstration, which Mr. Luetscher said was smaller and calmer than he had expected.

The big surprise for the ferry operator has come on the weekends, when ridership has averaged almost 4,500, more than six times the city’s projection. On Sunday, Oct. 9, the service carried about 6,500 passengers, said Paul Goodman, the chief executive of BillyBey, which operates under the flag of New York Waterway. “The enthusiasm that we’ve seen from these communities tells us that even though the city was in some manner hoping to encourage development along the waterfront, we’ve tapped into demand that was already there,” Mr. Goodman said.

He said he had urgently been trying to persuade city officials to provide financing to run more boats than the contract requires on weekends and capitalize on the momentum. He said he had offered to add boats in exchange for a more favorable financial arrangement, but Mr. Pinsky said he was reluctant to agree to a change that would be tantamount to increasing the public subsidy.

City officials are in less of a hurry because their ultimate goal is to attract more developers to the east bank of the river. Mr. Pinsky said the ferries could “really unlock” the construction of an additional 21,000 apartments in those neighborhoods, creating jobs and economic activity.