Pete Steuben, Rockaway resident tells N.Y.C. E.D.C. "We need the Rockaway Ferry"

The below letter was sent to Kyle Kimball, President of the Economic Development Corporation of N.Y.C. by Mr. Peter Stubben, a Rockaway resident, regarding continuation of the Rockaway Ferry service earlier this week.

***************

Peter J. Stubben
188 Beach 123rd
Rockaway, NY 11694 pjsfutures@gmail.com 

________________________________________________________________________

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Kyle Kimball
President,
Economic Development Corporation, NYC
110 William Street
New York, NY 10038

Dear Director...

Thank you so much for your great interest in Rockaway’s Seastreak ferry service and 
EDC’s efforts to help us preserve this commuting service.

Can I say this Seastreak service is the best thing to happen to Rockaway in a long, long 
time....and certainly Sandy being the very worst!

In the cost & subsidy analyses, you clearly are looking at operating cost/per rider (a) on 
the ferries, (b) in the subways and (c) on our roads. But...Can I suggest you seriously look at cap/ex and fixed costs per rider too.

For instance, LA is presently planning to extend her subway services to the beach... to Santa Monica... at a cost of some $2 Billion. You couldn't possibly suggest that future rider costs financed by Los Angeles County to be only operating costs per head, without considering these
mammoth construction costs, could you? Likewise, you estimate subway ridership 
subsidy costs to the city at 60 cents per rider. But you could not possibly suggest that 
subway riders on the new second avenue subway are gonna cost the city 60 cents... not
with the proposed cap/ex expenditures expected at some $17 Billion? 

Furthermore, this subway project is not into some under-explored territories that will spur further growth prospects above-ground, as this 2nd most dense population center in the world and being built as a convenience factor – not a development factor - to relieve congestion on the Lex. Likewise the number #7 expansion to the west side is estimated at some $4 billions, so likewise to estimate the City’s subsidy costs for those riders to be 60 cents, would under-estimate by large 
measures the City’s costs, no? Certainly I am not saying it isn’t important to extend the 
#7 or build the second avenue subway, but I am saying that cap/ex and fixed costs per 
rider should also play a role in your deliberations; and I further understand these fixed 
v operating costs come out of different buckets, so to speak, and are paid by different 
municipal hands, so to speak; but I am asking you to please consider the bigger picture.

In the bigger picture, ‘mother nature’ is underwriting the fixed and cap/ex costs to offer 
ferry service in New York, and specifically to Rockaway. This road bed and right of 
way have been here for 10.000 years, and Cornelius Vanderbilt was one of the first 
entrepreneurial New Yorkers to develop this great blue highway for New Yorkers. 

The fixed costs to establish this service to Rockaway and to ensure reliable, expansionary 
and potential ‘emergency’ service are ZERO Mr. Kimball. 

Support our ferry Mr. Kimball and you are supporting greener, cleaner and more reliable 
transportation at NO LONG-TERM COST to the City of New York.

Thank you Sir for every consideration. Rockaway needs the ferry and we need your 
insight into this complex web of NYC transit networks that work.

Sincerely,

Pete Stubben