New Study
Reveals that New York Ferries are More Polluting than Cars, Buses,
or Trains
A new Bluewater Network study
concludes that commute ferries operating on New York Harbor are far
more polluting per passenger than cars, buses, or trains. Unless
they are cleaned up, by the time new federal air quality standards
take effect in 2007, the ferries will be 100 to 1,000 times more
polluting per passenger mile than new cars.
Rapid ferry expansion in New York
Harbor is worsening the region’s unhealthy air and threatening
public health, and will for years to come if no action is taken.
Bluewater Network is calling on New York City and state policymakers
to require use of cleaner fuels and technologies before new ferries
are put on the water and to clean up the existing fleet. The problem
is that ferries operate on uncontrolled diesel engines that remain
in service for 20 or 30 years or more.
"We are not saying that you
should drive instead of taking the ferry, but that the fleet must be
cleaned up now, not later," said Teri Shore, Clean Vessels
Campaign Director for Bluewater Network, a national environmental
group based in San Francisco that sponsored the new study.
The study found that ferries must
become 95 percent cleaner in order to catch-up with emissions
reductions being achieved by cars and buses. Cars have become 98
percent cleaner in recent decades. The results came from comparing
diesel exhaust from three New York-New Jersey ferries to air
emissions produced by landside alternatives in 2007.
"The comparison is
stark," said Professor Alexander Farrell of University of
California at Berkeley, a lead author of the study, entitled Air
Pollution from Passenger Ferries in New York Harbor.
Passenger ferries have a long way to go before they can provide
access and mobility while protecting the environment."
The study is the first to compare
ferries with landside commute options in New York Harbor. The three
routes analyzed were: Weekhawken to Pier 79 (38th St.), Manhattan to
Atlantic Highlands, and Staten Island to Manhattan.
In every instance, the study found
ferries produce more air pollution per passenger trip than landside
alternatives for each route. Using 2007 as a baseline, when new
standards for ferries, cars, and buses go into effect, the study
found that emissions of cancer-causing particulate matter were as
much as 100 times higher per passenger than land modes. Releases of
smog-forming nitrogen oxides were as high as 1,000 times greater per
passenger than other modes. The findings were derived from New York
commute patterns and ferry ridership.
"Bluewater’s report is a
wakeup call for New Yorkers and their public officials, many of whom
assumed without having the facts that passenger ferries are a clean
mode of public transit," said Reed Super, Senior Attorney for
Riverkeepers, Inc., a New York environmental organization. "The
expansion of ferry traffic and the damaging wakes that result also
interferes with other commercial and recreational uses of our public
trust waters. Now that the facts are in, and before any new ferry
projects are undertaken, it’s time for real action to make the
ferry system truly green."