NY Waterway Responds To Complaints About Its Service From Belford

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — Commuters who take the Manhattan ferries from Belford say the service has done a nose-dive since NY Waterway took it back over last month.

It's gotten so bad that a Middletown woman, who works as a high-ranking attorney in Manhattan, started this petition asking Monmouth County to give the Belford ferry contact back to Seastreak.

"My husband and I moved to Middletown nearly two years ago, and reliable ferry service to Manhattan was one of the major reasons we chose this community," said the woman, Janine Materna-Schulman. "Since NY Waterway replaced Seastreak at Belford, however, the quality and reliability of the commute has declined significantly. I am now leaving home earlier than I did when Seastreak operated the route, yet I am frequently arriving at work later. In the evenings, I leave work around the same time as before but often arrive home approximately 20 minutes later."

"As a working mother with a baby daughter at home, that lost time matters tremendously," she said.

Materna-Schulman said more than 300 people signed the petition so far, and she plans to present it to the Monmouth County Board of Commissioners next week.

She and other commuters say the 8 a.m. ferry out of Belford "is always late," and there are not as many evening return trips as Seastreak offered. For some reason, the trip into Lower Manhattan even takes longer aboard NY Waterway boats. Also, NY Waterway boats seem older, more rickety and less stable and sturdy compared to Seastreak's rides, which were much more comfortable, say commuters.

People report it's a rougher ride across Raritan Bay on NY Waterway's boats.

“The boats are very rough. It vibrates a lot. I actually have to carry a little towel with me to sit on because the seats are so hard and my lower back kills me and I’m generally in good shape,” one rider told Eyewitness News.

Many passengers complain of severely overcrowded NY Waterway boats, so crowded that people have to stand the entire time, sit on the floor, outdoor roof decks or even crouched on stairs for the roughly one-hour ride into Manhattan.

"The return of NY Waterway has been awful from Day 2," said another passenger. "One ride home, the Molly Pitcher's air conditioning on the upper deck wasn’t working. Guy next to me had an iPhone app that showed it was 98 degrees, and we were all sweating profusely. Deckhands were not permitted to open the doors to allow air flow through. People were openly cursing at the deckhands because it was so uncomfortable."

Things came to a head this week: On Monday, the day before the piling collision, a ferry stopped in the bay off Belford for 10 minutes because of engine problems. A woman stood up and asked people to sign the petition; she was met with claps from commuters aboard the boat.

Then not even 24 hours later, early Tuesday morning, a NY Waterway boat accidentally banged into a piling as it pulled out of the Belford dock. The impact shattered more than 10 windows on board.

But what stunned passengers the most was instead of re-docking and checking for damage, the boat instead simply kept going and raced across the harbor, possibly to get commuters into work on time.

"The most absurd part about it was that they just kept going," one rider told Eyewitness News.

“Everyone just heard 'pop pop pop pop' and looked over and just see the glass shattering all the up the boat falling in the cab and onto the passengers,” said commuter Erika Rech.

She said the passengers were given no explanation as to what had just happened, and crew instead moved everyone to an upper deck as the ferry raced across the bay.

Materna-Schulman's husband, Dan Schulman, asked the U.S. Coast Guard to investigate what happened Tuesday, and how exactly the collision with the piling occurred, NJ.com reported.

“I cannot believe the vessel continued on its way,” he told the news outlet.

He said the captain and crew should immediately have been removed from the vessel and given a drug and alcohol test.

That was not done.

Adam Pockriss, who works for a public relations firm hired by NY Waterway, said the company “provided the Coast Guard with full information regarding the incident.”

He said that after the windows were shattered Tuesday, "no injuries were reported by our passengers or the boat’s crew that required medical attention. Passengers were moved up to the second deck, and the Molly Pitcher safely completed its trip to Manhattan."

Pockriss told Patch NY Waterway hears customers' complaints, and is working to address them, calling them "important issues."

"All issues are being addressed at all levels, corrected, and being closely monitored," he said. "Crowding was due to one of our two large boats, the Betsy Ross, temporarily being out of service. Once the Betsy Ross was put back in service, this was resolved. We were always in compliance with U.S. Coast Guard safety standards. We have two large 400 passenger vessels dedicated to our Belford service. These are more than adequate to accommodate the number of daily Belford customers."

He also said all NY Waterway boats always have working bathrooms, as one passenger said the bathrooms were not working on one trip.

Some people are begging Middletown Township not to use NY Waterway for its annual Christmas-time boat rides with Santa.

And the parking lot is "always empty" now at Belford because many commuters are driving a little farther to Atlantic Highlands or Highlands, and taking the Seastreak ferries from there, even though Seastreak ferries are more expensive.

Passengers are "willing to pay a few extra bucks for working and reliable boats!" says one passenger. "Who are the folks in Monmouth County that made the decision to give the contract back? Bring back Seastreak!"

Both NY Waterway and Seastreak submitted bids to operate the ferry service out of Belford, after a judge ordered Monmouth County to reopen the bidding for Belford.

The judge said Monmouth County improperly awarded the contract to Seakstreak several years ago.

In August, Monmouth County chose to award the contract to NY Waterway because they offered to run the service for less money; NY Waterway is cheaper than Seastreak.

"SeaStreak provided a level of service that commuters could depend on," said Materna-Schulman. "Their vessels were comfortable, equipped with restrooms, staffed by trained professionals, and consistently punctual. Most importantly, I always felt safe traveling with them. They also had WiFi allowing people to work while commuting. By comparison, NY Waterway feels like a yellow school bus on water — and that’s coming from someone who proudly attended New York City public schools!"

NY Waterway Ferry Hit Dock As It Departed Belford (Tuesday)