Staten Island is joining the city’s fast ferry system — cutting travel time from the island to Manhattan in half, Mayor de Blasio announced Thursday in his sixth State of the City speech, which also included pledges to speed up buses, expand pre-K and crack down on bad landlords.
De Blasio couched the broad-ranging announcements in frequent references to his accomplishments as he issued a clarion call for progressive economics.
“Brothers and sisters, there’s plenty of money in the world. There’s plenty of money in this city. It’s just in the wrong hands! You deserve a city that gives you the share of prosperity that you’ve earned,” he said.
The new ferry route will take passengers from the St. George terminal on Staten Island to Battery Park in Lower Manhattan in 18 minutes, and then take another 17 minutes to travel to Pier 79 on West 39th Street, according to the Staten Island Advance.
Hizzoner also pledged new stops in Coney Island and Ferry Point in The Bronx, while separately promising to make the streets more amenable to city buses.
He proposed a plan to increase bus speeds by 25 percent, from an average of 7.44 to 9.03 miles per hour.
And the buses should be able to achieve those speeds as the city doubles the number of intersections where buses get green-light priority and increases enforcement against bus-lane scofflaws, he said.
“The NYPD is adding it’s first ever tow-truck units dedicated solely to keeping parked cars out of bus lanes,” de Blasio said.
“But we need Albany to do its job to finally fix the subways,” he added.
De Blasio also made promises to the Big Apple’s littlest citizens too — pledging to expand preschool for 3-year-olds called 3K, while expanding a partnership with eyeglass manufacturer Warby Parker to “provide free eye exams and free eyeglasses to every kindergartener and first grader citywide.”
He’s also expanding a controversial program that allows the city to yank buildings from property owners in a bid to battle bad landlords.
“When the city’s worst landlords cheat their tenants, we will take their buildings from them,” de Blasio said during the speech at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Symphony Space in Manhattan.
He also re-upped a longstanding demand to “ban plastic bags and plastic straws,” in an ad-libbed moment not on his prepared remarks.
The city previously tried to outlaw plastic bags, but was stymied by the Republican-controlled state Senate.
Additional reporting by Rich Calder