Graphic credit: Hoboken Residents for a Public Waterfront
Dear friends and neighbors:
In case you have not already noticed, there is a NYWW Ferry that is docked at the former UDD site. I contacted Mayor Bhalla who indicated that NYWW is not yet allowed to conduct any work at the site until they get their local building permits, but the City is reviewing whether they can dock their boats there while they await final permits. NYWW has taken the position that they can park there given they own the site. Mayor Bhalla also told me that after the City sent a legal notice regarding local zoning compliance requirements last week, NYWW's attorney said that they will not be conducting any work this year. Prior to the legal notice being sent, NYWW had said they planned to start operation before the end of the year.
The following is from my email of 12/8, but it all still applies so I am copying and pasting here again. I WOULD ADD ONE THING - IF YOU HAVE A PICTURE THAT SHOW HOW INVASIVE THE PARKED FERRIES ARE TO OUR ENVIRONMENT, PLEASE INCLUDE THAT IN ALL OF YOUR CORRESPONDENCE. PICTURES SAY A THOUSAND WORDS:
Repeated from 12/8: The single most critical next step is for Mayor Bhalla, Governor Murphy and NJ Transit to agree a superior location for ferry operations. And right now all reports – ours and NJ Transits - point to Hoboken’s own Lackawanna Terminal as one of the preferred sites. Given this approval, it may be more difficult to stop NYWW from occupying the former UDD site in the near term, but that doesn’t mean we should not stop fighting for the right permanent location elsewhere.
I urge all Hoboken residents to call Governor Murphy’s office at 609-292-6000, tell him how important our waterfront is to our community and ask him to do the right thing for his constituents: protect Hoboken’s waterfront and better align all public transportation at one or all of the superior sites identified, including Hoboken’s Lackawanna Terminal. Please also email our representatives and post on twitter and FB including the links for the video showing our waterfront and to the Alternative Site Engineering reports.
- Video: https://vimeo.com/275264859
- Studies (further links in article): https://www.hobokennj.gov/news/hoboken-releases-study-of-potential-ferry-maintenance-sites
- Email Governor Murphy: http://nj.gov/governor/contact/ (Topic: Environment; Sub-topic: Pollution and Contamination; subject line: Protect Hoboken from Environmental Pollution)
- Email NJ Transit Exec. Director Kevin Corbett – KCorbett@njtransit.com
- On Twitter tag and/or message @GovMurphy, @SenatorMenedez, @SenBooker, and @njtransit and include #hoboken on all posts.
- Forward information to your friends. Use your own email distribution / friend’s lists to forward this email, and those from others so our community is best informed.
To those who are less supportive of this effort. Please note none of us are supportive of NYWW shutting down under any circumstances. That is not what this is about. This is about continuing the decades-long effort of protecting our waterfront for the best and highest use for Hoboken and working for the best strategic solution for all transportation needs.
Thank you to Mayor Bhalla for his continued advocacy for protecting our waterfront. As always, if you have any questions or want to discuss this or anything else, please feel free to call me at 201/208-1674. And please forward this to anyone you know who you think would be interested in this information.
TiffanieFisher
Hoboken City Council, 2nd Ward
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