Governors Island Trust Announces City’s First Public Hybrid-Electric Ferry; Invites Public to Name It
The Trust for Governors Island and the administration of Mayor Eric Adams have announced plans to bring the City’s first hybrid-electric ferry into service next year. The new vessel, now under construction in Louisiana, will accommodate up to 1,200 passengers and will operate in two modes: zero-emission, battery-only power or battery-assisted hybrid with diesel backup. Even the latter will prevent the emission of some 600 tons of carbon dioxide every 12 months, roughly the amount absorbed by 24,000 mature trees over the same period.
“The people of Lower Manhattan have been calling for clean, quiet ferries for as long as I can remember,” noted Tammy Meltzer, chair of Community Board 1. “This may be the first hybrid vessel in service in our harbor, but it won’t be the last. We hope that every operator will follow the Trust’s lead for all future purchases and major overhauls.”
“New York City’s need for sustainable transportation is not just limited to its roads—our waterways need green investment too,” added New York State Assembly member Grace Lee.
Operating the new ferry entirely on batteries will reduce its emissions to almost zero, but this will have to await the installation of rapid-charging infrastructure at the docks used by the Governors Island Ferry.
“We now look to our partners in government to help the Trust secure the funding needed to install a charging element to their Manhattan slip to realize the full benefits of this vessel,” Ms. Meltzer said.
This development comes on the heels of a recent announcement by NY Waterway, the company that operates between the Battery Park City Ferry Terminal (located near the foot of Vesey Street) and various cities in New Jersey, that it has committed to converting several of its vessels to hybrid-electric propulsion. The new Governors Island ferry and the converted NY Waterway vessels will begin operation in 2024.
A third entrant in the local eco-ferry competition is the Elizabeth Fast Ferry, which is slated to begin taking passengers between Pier 15 (on the East River waterfront, near South Street Seaport) and Elizabeth, New Jersey, later this spring. Proprietors have said their vessels will initially run on biofuel processed from vegetable oil in Elizabeth. When business is established, they will explore a shift to electric-hybrid vessels.
A resolution enacted by CB1 in 2019 observed that noise and air pollution from diesel-powered ferries have been a chronic source of complaints among Lower Manhattan residents for decades, and that “making the best use of marine facilities will require modernizing and adding electric charging capabilities at the existing marine infrastructure.” The same measure also noted that the Port Authority, which operates all of New York’s airports, “has been actively electrifying airport buses and working to reduce carbon emissions in their facilities, so helping to create an infrastructure that would support a transition to all electric ferries furthers the goal of reducing their carbon footprint.”
The resolution concluded by urging the City’s Economic Development Corporation (which manages Pier 15), “to install the needed marine electrification infrastructure that would allow marine vessels that use the piers in [Lower Manhattan] to go fully electric,” and called upon the Port Authority (which also oversees the ferry terminal near Brookfield Place) “to add electrical charging infrastructure at or near their Battery Park City ferry dock.”
Ferries powered by electricity are increasingly common abroad. In Norway, the Bastø Electric ferry plies the six-mile Oslofjord inlet, between Moss and Horten (that nation’s busiest route) on 24 trips per day, carrying 3.8 million passengers and 1.8 million vehicles annually. The switch to electric propulsion is estimated to have reduced local ferry emissions by 75 percent, and has been so successful that two additional electric vessels are now under construction.
City Hall and the Trust for Governors Island also have announced a public competition to name the new Governors Island vessel. Now through May 25, any person is invited to contribute ideas here.
This may trigger a reprise of a controversial 2016 crowdsourced prank in which the British public were invited to vote on the name of a new oceanographic research vessel. By an overwhelming majority, respondents demanded that the ship be christened “Boaty McBoatface.” (This was apparently inspired by “Hooty McOwlface,” the name given to the mascot of an online Adopt-A-Bird drive several years earlier.) Britain’s science minister chose to defy popular opinion and name the new boat after the acclaimed naturalist, Sir David Attenborough. This immediately triggered a second online campaign, which sought to persuade Mr. Attenborough to change his name legally to Boaty McBoatface. That crusade was no more successful than its predecessor.