Carteret, South Amboy Move Forward With NYC Ferry Service

CARTERET, NJ — Both Carteret and South Amboy announced this week they are moving full-steam ahead with plans to open ferry service to New York City in both towns.

On Wednesday of this week, Carteret Mayor Dan Reiman said the town was given a $5 million grant from the NJ Department of Transportation Trust Fund to help pay for its ferry terminal. This new $5 million is in addition to the $6 million federal grant Carteret received in 2018, earmarked for ferry service, and nearly $4 million previously secured by Senator Bob Menendez (D) as part of the SAFTE-LU Bill and Transportation Act for the 21st Century.

The ferry terminal — if it's built — would lie at the north end of Carteret Waterfront Park, along the Arthur Kill. It would take about 25 minutes for the ferry boat to reach Lower Manhattan.

Similarly, in July of this year, South Amboy announced it received $5.3 million in federal funding to build its passenger ferry terminal. The South Amboy ferry terminal will be located at 1 Radford Ferry Road, next to the Manhattan Beach Club, a currently under-construction 1,875-unit luxury apartment complex.

Both these previously blue-collar, working-class towns are trying to reinvent themselves as attractive bedroom communities for New York City commuters, similar to the way Jersey City and Hoboken transformed their waterfronts with ferry service.

However, construction has not yet begun on either ferry terminal; there is no actual date for when construction will begin and no ferry operator for either city has been announced.

South Amboy aims to break ground in 2021, city Business Administrator Glenn Skarzynski told MyCentralJersey this week.

"At this moment we do not have a hard and fast date (on the start of construction)," Skarzynski told Patch this summer. "Once we begin construction it is expected we will have operational service within one year and full build-out six months later."

That mean ferry service could begin before full construction on the site is complete.

The trip from South Amboy to Lower Manhattan is about 40 minutes by boat.

“The commute from Carteret to Manhattan will soon take even less time with a new direct ferry route to Midtown and Wall Street,” said Mayor Dan Reiman this week. “Thank you to Governor Murphy and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin for stepping up and providing funding that will make this vision a reality in the near future.”

Carteret's ferry terminal will be surrounded by as-of-yet-unbuilt condos, office and retail space, and boardwalk shops, promised Reiman. This is all part of Reiman’s vision to transform Carteret’s waterfront: The Carteret Waterfront Park now has a waterfront fishing pier and a 185-slip boat marina that opened in 2019.

Reiman hopes to build a future events center at the park and a $13.25 million boardwalk and river walk. This will be a 20-foot-wide elevated pedestrian boardwalk connecting the parking lot and the ferry loading area, should it be built.

“Our nearly two miles of public access along our eastern shoreline, including our ferry, marina, events center, and walkway is a remarkable feat for a community that had no public access to the waterfront for over 100 years,” said Reiman, of Carteret's previously industrial waterfront.

Past coverage: South Amboy To Receive $5.3 Million For Ferry To New York City (July 2020)

NJ Transit Replacing Raritan River Bridge: Do you ride the North Jersey Coast line? NJ Transit is building a new bridge over Raritan Bay, and will demolish the current one. (Sept. 2020)

Carteret Officially Opens Marina, Free Slips For Boro Residents (July 2019)

Carteret Trying To Launch Ferry Service To Manhattan (April 2018)

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