Transit On the Water: Top 10 Ferry and Water Taxi Cities in North America

Nearly every city has a close relationship to a bay or river -- bodies of water are critical to commercial activity, tourism, and a city's sense of identity.

But bodies of water can also be transportation barriers, and if a bridge isn't feasible, sometimes a ferry or water taxi can be the best travel option. In this video, we explore North America, looking for the ten metro areas that generate the most annual trips by ferry and water taxi.

Other CityNerd videos referenced in this video:

Transit Agencies referenced in this video:

Data Sources:

Other Resources:

Photo/Video Credits:
- Staten Island Ferry Videos by CityXcape from Pexels
- BC Ferries Video Video by Vimeo-Free-Videos from Pixabay
- Hong Kong for title Video by Lam Bill from Pexels

Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (YouTube music library)

Twitter: @nerd4cities
Instagram: @nerd4cities

[rogermichaelwillis]

I'm an American living in Istanbul, Turkey, and it has the most amazing ferry system I've ever seen. It handles 300, 000 passengers every day. A ferry leaves every 20 minutes and takes you back and forth from Asia to Europe.

[abootoo]

I'm from Toronto so I can answer a few questions. The Billy Bishop airport ferry used to be much busier as it was the only way to get to the airport until the tunnel opened in 2015. Since then, the ferry continues to run to allow motor vehicles to access the airport, but most foot passengers take the tunnel. (Fun fact: it's the shortest regularly-scheduled ferry route in the world, taking about 90 seconds end to end, running every 15 minutes) 2 million a year prior to the tunnel opening sounds reasonable.
The three Toronto Island ferries (Ward's Island, Centre Island, Hanlan's Point) are mostly used in the summer season for people accessing the Toronto Islands Park. There are a few hundred people who live on the islands, and they are served by the year-round Ward's Island ferry. (The other two only operate seasonally). During the summer, all three ferries are very busy with day-trippers to the Islands, but outside of that when only Ward's Island ferry runs (for the island residents, Parks workers, and those working at the few businesses on the islands), the Islands are virtually deserted. So, super-high ridership in the summer (75k per day sounds reasonable), and basically none in the winter (maybe <1k/day?).

[robjohnson]

As a New Yorker, I love seeing NY as #1 😁

The only thing I will add about the Staten Island Ferry is that I'm pretty sure on its own it would be the largest fare-free public transit system in the country! Kansas City MO made their busses fare free, and that entire system is close in daily ridership to the SIF but as far as I can tell the SIF is the larger of the two (the pandemic makes this math a little dicey).
Also, it is one of the only 24h systems, running at least half hourly service at all times!

[patrickfallon]

The NYC interboro ferry (Manhattan-Brooklyn-Queens) is really an underrated way to travel, especially in the summertime. Same price as a metrocard swipe, you get to experience glorious views of the east river bridges and Manhattan and Brooklyn skylines. Certainly beats waiting for the subway in a hot (and sometimes smelly) station. Also, there is the Seastreak Ferry that carries commuters from Atlantic Highlands, NJ on the Jersey Shore to lower Manhattan

[colormedubious]

Fun fact: There's seasonal ferry service between Seattle (actually Bellingham) Washington and Anchorage (actually Whittier) Alaska. You can take your car or RV up and back without having to drive through Canada.

[patrickmcneill]

And that brief passing mention of Victoria is the first and only time my hometown is making one of these lists. Glad to see ferries getting some love.

[lukearnold]

There’s one more ferry operator in Seattle - Kitsap transit runs “fast ferries” (passenger-only boats that go a lot faster than WSF ferries) from Colman Dock in downtown Seattle to Bremerton and Kingston, and they’re adding service to Southworth too! It’s a much better option for Westsound commuters - the WSF route from Seattle to Bremerton takes an hour, while the fast ferry is only 30 minutes.

[canadaehxplained]

Victoria definitely could've been it's own metro in this video - and probably would've crested Vancouver (on a no-lockdown year). There's the BC Ferries services from Swartz Bay back to Tsawwassen and to the gulf islands; there's Washington State that has service to Sidney back to Anacortes and the US Gulf Islands; there's the COHO which crosses twice daily from downtown Victoria to Port Angeles; there's the quick ferries from downtown to Vancouver and Seattle; and then there are the harbour ferries that take people around the city along the inner harbour and the gorge region!

[jettbridger]

Automatic like for my hometown! Halifax is a beautiful city that I love

[bospdxyvr]

I love that my native Boston and my current home of Vancouver did so well on this list! I'm one of the riders on the SeaBus every day, it's a nice relaxing ride across Vancouver Harbour. The views of downtown are spectacular! (PS - Great pronunciations of Charlestown and Barnstable. Tsawwassen was a good effort, but...)

[Josukegaming]

Absolutely love your combination of dry humour and making things like transit/numbers interesting!

[ScottMaskell]

Finally. Halifax makes a transit video. Our one redeeming feature of the transit system, the ferry.

[AaronSmith-sxez]

Ferries can have fantastic synergy with airports. Often airports are located close to water where the ground may not be stable for tunneling for rail or roads. Yes, ferries take much longer to load/unload than rapid transit, but most passengers/pilots/crew aren't daily commuters and can justify spend a bit more time to use a ferry. LGA is a fantastic example of this. For all the controversial about the new airlink connection to LGA offending NIMBY's, an LGA ferry could easily and cheaply connect the airport to Manhattan and provide direct connections (finally) to the metro without needing the city's infamous slow/cramped busses to get out of LGA.

[lasyoi]

While it won't change Vancouver's ranking, I disagree with the claim that false creek ferries don't fit the criteria. They are essentially the fastest way to travel across false creek, and it do serve commute purposes and they do sell month passes. They are part of essential public transportation around false creek community in my mind. In the mean time it is indeed hard to find their ridership report, and this can be a acceptable cause to exclude them from the numbers.

[brendanSD]

I do enjoy my East River rides on the NYC Ferry! One interesting note not mentioned about this service is that it has a route to Rockaway Beach

[bronxsportsfan]

The San Francisco Bay Area's ferries we're helped by its popularity due to the 1989 Earthquake. Next to BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), the ferries did a tremendous job of transporting people in a crisis. Glad to see the Bay Area continues to maintain ferry service 30-plus years later.

[apparition]

The Alaska Marine Highway runs a rout out of Puget Sound too. Bellingham to Ketchikan. It's a bit north of the Seattle Metro area, but I think it should count.

[lifestain]

The New City's ferries network is really impressive, I didn't expect to see so many routes. Montreal is so underserved for being an island in an archipelago in the Saint-Lawrence river, an important seaway... oh well. There are discussion here of creating fast and small ferry lines to connect more part of the region but we are far from being in this top ten.

[nixcails]

I love living in a city with a large selection of ferries linking the city with neighbouring towns, the Duchy of Cornwall and even Bretagne, Spain and Portugal. Everything from the small solar electric Mountbatten ferry to the Torpoint floating bridges (3 ferries on chains that carry double decker buses into Cornwall [Kernow] ) up to Pont Aven, Galicia and Cap Finisterre cruise ferries to Brittany and Iberia.

[davidreichert]

Honestly, I'm surprised you mentioned Toronto at all. Toronto Island is only a recreational destination (aside from a very small number of people who have homes there), so it isn't the kind of trip one would take in the normal course of their life. I'm not sure that the daily ridership figure was an average or daily max over the course of a year, but obviously there are major discrepancies between winter and summer.

As for Billy Bishop, ever since the paedestrian tunnel went in, the ferry only really gets used for vehicles servicing the airport.