Mayor Bloomberg wants New Yorkers to use their Metrocards — to catch an East River ferry.
And he wants you to go see a movie — at the 34th Street heliport off the FDR Drive on summer nights, when the choppers are grounded.
Both ideas are part of “Vision 2020,” a 190-page blueprint for restoring the waterfront that Bloomberg will unveil tomorrow with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn at a press conference in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
The plan covers all five boroughs, from an esplanade in the Charleston section of Staten Island to a possible boat launch at Hunts Point in the Bronx.
“We have more miles of waterfront than Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and Portland combined, but for decades New Yorkers have been blocked from it,” the mayor said in a prepared statement.
“We have made huge strides in re-connecting communities to the waterfront and now we are launching an ambitious plan that ties those projects together into what will be one of the most sweeping transformations of any waterfront in the world.”
“We’re committed to making it a part of New Yorkers’ lives again by completely revitalizing the waterfront and waterways, or as we’re calling it, the sixth borough.”
Developed after nearly a year of study and consultation, the 10-year plan includes 130 projects over the next three years that’s being funded with $700 million from the city’s capital budget. Many of those projects have previously been announced, such as ferries connecting Brooklyn and Queens to midtown and Lower Manhattan starting this spring.
Metrocard transfers between subways, buses and the new ferries assume large numbers of commuters will flock to the waterborne vessels, which they haven’t in the past.
“It’s a discussion we’re continuing to have with the MTA,’ said a city official. “As ferries become a bigger part of the commuting system, we’d look to something like this to make them work.”
More than half the allocated spending — $360 million — would go towards acquiring 50 acres of new waterfront parks, expanding and improving 10 existing parks and developing 14 new greenways and esplanades