NEWBURGH – The privately run Newburgh-Beacon ferry, which connected the twin cities on two consecutive weekends, has been deemed a success by all accounts.
The New York Boat Co., headquartered in both Kingston and Peekskill, teamed up with a coalition of area residents on both sides of the Hudson River to revive the ferry that until early this year provided weekday runs to connect Newburgh residents with the Metro-North Hudson Line Railroad in Beacon.
Metro-North pulled the plug on that service citing extremely low ridership.
But, based on the popularity of this recent weekend runs on a smaller, 40-passenger vessel, one of its organizers, Naomi Hersson-Ringskog of Newburgh would like to have conversations about reviving the service.
“We realize that this needs to not be a privately run thing or a publicly run thing; it might have to be a combination, a public-private partnership on the effort. So, we are going to see how that plays out,” she said.
Hersson-Ringskog hopes that the governor and MTA will come to the table to explore bringing back the service on a more regular basis.
Helping to make this recent pilot service viable, the Orange County Industrial Development Agency contributed $100,000 toward the cost.
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