ST. GEORGE — Riders will no longer have to wait an hour for an early morning Staten Island Ferry.
The link between Manhattan and Staten Island will run every half-hour around the clock starting Thursday, eliminating the switch to hour-long service that used to happen early mornings on weekdays.
"Every Staten Islander has had that experience of missing the ferry and waiting an hour for the next one to pull in. Today, that’s a thing of the past," Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement.
"Ferries will depart St. George and Lower Manhattan at least every thirty minutes, and that means easier commutes, better business and stronger tourism on both sides of New York harbor."
Rush hour service for the boat — which departs every 15 minutes on weekdays — will remain the same, but instead of switching to hour-long service after 1:30 a.m. the boats will leave every 30 minutes.
Last year, the City Council approved a bill that increased service and the first phase of the plan started in May adding 26 additional trips to cut out hour waits during the weekends.
This month, City Hall released a report that showed ferry ridership jumped to 21.9 million riders from July 2014 to June 2015, a 4 percent increase, the Staten Island Advance reported.
"The recently released ridership numbers have proven that when you add additional service, riders will utilize it," Borough President James Oddo said in a statement.
"In this era of service cuts, it is not often that you see such a dramatic increase in service as we have seen in the last two years."
