CITY HALL -- A new fast ferry is in the works for Staten Islanders, after over a year of anticipation, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday he has selected the borough to join the NYC Ferry system.

The mayor plans to make a formal announcement about the latest addition to NYC Ferry at his State of the City Address on Thursday at 11 a.m. in Manhattan.

The new fast ferry route will run from St. George to Battery Park/Vesey Street for a total of 18 minutes.

It will continue on for another 17 minutes from Battery Park City/Vesey Street to Midtown West at Pier 79/West 39th Street.

The route will run for a total of about 35 minutes.

The Economic Development Corporation (EDC) said the city plans to launch the new route sometime in 2020. It will cost commuters $2.75 per ride.

“It’s official: The NYC Ferry will now serve all five boroughs,'' de Blasio said. "Staten Islanders asked for a new route, and we’re delivering. We look forward to growing the system and making it better than ever for all New Yorkers.”

In total, EDC said commuters will see an average of 20 minutes shaved off their commutes to Battery Park and another 20 minutes taken off their commute to Midtown West, if you factor in the time it takes to get on the subway and walk to those locations.

An exact schedule for the St. George-to-Manhattan fast ferry route has not yet been determined, but the current NYC Ferry routes run about every 20 minutes during the peak spring and summer seasons, and about every 60 minutes during the off-peak seasons during winter and fall.

De Blasio previously admitted he made a mistake when he called the city’s fast ferry program a five-borough ferry plan.

He said Staten Island was not included in the city’s fast ferry system because the borough already has a ferry.

Over the summer, the mayor said once the city’s fast ferry program opened lines in Soundview in the Bronx, and the Lower East Side, he would look at where the city could expand ferry service next.

Since then, he has mulled over many different spots around the city, including locations on the South Shore.

“A speedy St George-Battery Park City-Midtown West connection is a much-needed and very welcome addition to what will soon become a true five-borough ferry system," said Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore). "This new route from St. George will take cars off our roads and exhaust out of our air, while adding minutes, if not hours, to the lives of Staten Islanders who suffer some of the longest commute times in the country — a positive, sustainable step forward for North Shore transportation”

MAXIMIZING THE OPPORTUNITY

Borough President James Oddo welcomed the mayor’s announcement, and said he is already thinking about how he can “maximize” this opportunity to help commuters in other parts of the Island.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of Staten Islanders who will use it, the price certainly is right and the ability to get into Downtown and to Midtown on the West Side in that time period, I think that’s going to be extremely attractive,” Oddo said.

He added he plans to set up a call with MTA New York City Transit President Andy Byford on Thursday to see if the agency would go for running express trains from the South Shore to St. George so that commuters on the South Shore can use the new fast ferry route too.

For more than a year now, Oddo has been in discussions with Arthur Imperatore, president and founder of NY Waterway, about bringing a private fast ferry service to the North Shore of the Island.

Over the summer, Imperatore told the Advance his company had already designed and started construction on at least one of the Island’s boats.

With the mayor’s latest announcement, Oddo said he still wants to work with Imperatore on bringing a private fast ferry to another part of the Island, be it the east side of the North Shore, Mid Island, or the South Shore.

“I need to pivot quickly and see if there’s a way that we can provide a service still to maybe another part of Manhattan,” he said.

Following the mayor’s visit to the Island in July, Oddo said de Blasio asked him and other elected officials to come up with a short list of potential South Shore sites for a new fast ferry.

The mayor said he looked at a number of South Shore sites with local elected officials during his visit to the borough, which had "advantages" but also "real problems."

In October, Oddo gave the city a list of six potential Island fast ferry sites: Mount Loretto off Sharrott Avenue; Crookes Point at Great Kills Park, where fast ferry service was added after Hurricane Sandy; an idea to open up the end of New Dorp Lane and take down old airplane hangars to run service there; a site in Stapleton that would connect to the East Side of Manhattan; a site in St. George that would run to the east side of Manhattan; or adding a line from Staten Island to Brooklyn.

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