OPINION: Never mind the bikes: subways to Staten Island!
A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to a concert at Historic Richmondtown in Staten Island. I thought this would be a simple matter: take the subway from our home in Chelsea to South Ferry, take the ferry, then take a bus. The last time, I had rented a car and gone via the Gowanus Expressway and the Verrazano Bridge, but this time I thought I could do it more cheaply.
My flaw, however, was to think that the ferries came about once every 10 minutes. When we got to the ferry terminal, we found, to my chagrin, that the ferries came only once every half hour, at least on the weekend. Moreover, one had just departed. When we got to the ferry terminal in Fort George, there was no time for a bus. We ended up taking a cab to Historic Richmondtown, for $25. So much for saving money.
When Staten Island joined Greater New York, it was expected that a rapid transit connection to the island would be built. Since Brooklyn is much closer to Staten Island than Manhattan is, it was expected that the connection would be through Brooklyn. Indeed, in the early 1920s, the BMT (Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit, one of the ancestors of today’s city-owned subway system) began digging a tunnel from Bay Ridge to Staten Island, where it was expected to hook up with the Staten Island Railway (now also a part of the city’s transit system).