Cheap thrills: Free weekend water taxi to Brooklyn (sort of free on weekdays too)

Boy, Home Depot, Target or Goldman Saks should do this for Jersey City!

How it works -- you just take the PATH (you can even bring a folding bike) and go to Pier 11 and get a free water taxi ride to and from the Ikea store in Red Hook Brooklyn -- if you want you can even ride your bike back over the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan or Williamsburg Bridges...



It?s apar-TIDE! Ikea sets up two-tier system for free ferry rides

By Mike McLaughlin
The Brooklyn Paper

The opening day of Ikea?s superstore on Beard Street in Red Hook featured hundreds of cheering employees, circus acts, bands, giveaways, the company?s famous Swedish meatballs and, apparently, some sales of furniture.

Ikea ?customers? wait near the Red Hook superstore for a ferry to take them to Manhattan. Riders who started their trip to the big blue Beard Street outlet in the city get a handstamp so they can get back. Brooklyn customers, however, don?t get the stamp, so they end up on the back of the line.

Pete Lasorsa shows off the handstamp he received when he boarded Ikea?s ?free? ferry in Manhattan to get to the Red Hook superstore.

Ikea has changed course and will now offer its free ferry service to its customers first ? and only then allow non-shoppers to set sail to Manhattan from the Red Hook superstore.

Stung by widespread use of the free cruises by people who had no intention of going to the Beard Street furniture outlet, the Swedish mega-chain will now hand-stamp all Red Hook?bound passengers ? and then put them at the head of the line for the return trip to Manhattan.

?People who board [in Manhattan] or swing through the store, will receive a stamp, and if there?s a very long line, we are working to insure people who legitimately were in Ikea get preference in boarding the water taxis,? said company spokesman Joseph Roth.

?We needed to come up with some way to ensure there?s smooth customer flow to the store.?

But it?s unclear how well the system will work. When a Brooklyn Paper reporter bought some food in the Ikea?s cafeteria (the meatballs were fine, thank you very much), he was not given a hand-stamp to secure the coveted first dibs on the ferry to Manhattan.

In the end, it didn?t matter because everyone got on the ferry with weekday traffic is so light. But during peak times since the store opened a month ago, lines for the water taxis have exceeded the 75- or 150-person capacity of the vessels, leaving some paying Ikea customers waiting on the dock while joyriders have traversed the East River.

Free water taxis were originally promised to all travelers ? couch- or meatball-buyers and moochers alike ? as a way to mollify Red Hook residents? fears their neighborhood would be overrun by car traffic.

Depending on customer volume in the blue?and?yellow Beard Street box, the catamarans depart every 10 to 40 minutes.
On a recent weekday afternoon, when there were few passengers, customers lauded Ikea?s shopper-first policy.
?It makes sense. With a big bag, you?d want to get on first,? said Jane Smith. ?Since I?m buying something, I?m all for it.?
Other riders were happy to even have the option of sailing the seas.

?I?m here visiting my brother in Red Hook,? said tourist Tim Hackenberry. ?I took the ferry to visit him yesterday, too. It?s pretty cool. A lot less crowded than the trains.?
? with Michael Lipkin

?2008 The Brooklyn Paper
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Ikea to start charging for ferry service to Hook superstore
By Mike McLaughlin
The Brooklyn Paper


The Brooklyn Paper / Adrian Kinloch

There's no longer a free ride on this Ikea ferry.There?s no such thing as a free launch.

Ikea will discontinue its universal free water taxi service and begin charging riders $5 each way to travel by sea on weekdays to the Red Hook megastore if they don?t spend $10 in the home furnishings and Swedish meatballs palace.
The fare hike is part of a summer transit shuffle at the one-year-old store on Ikea that will extend the hours of the daily water taxi from 11 am to 9 pm between store?s private dock and Pier 11 in Manhattan.

?We have implemented this policy because our customers are using the water taxi service, but the cost is such that we cannot continue subsidizing it during the week as a commuter service for those who are not Ikea customers,? said Mike Baker, the store?s manager.
Weekend ferry service will remain free of charge to all comers and the shuttle bus service to subway stations, now running from 1 to 9 pm daily, is also complimentary.
The water taxi and shuttle bus service became instantly popular when the store opened last year and boats were actually so crowded at one point that Ikea caused an uproar when its customers were allowed to board the water taxis before non-shoppers.

Ikea provided the mass transit options in order to win public support for their big box retail store that many hostile critics thought would clog Red Hook?s quiet streets. A recent report found that Ikea-related traffic was less than a study conducted before the store opened had predicted.

Under the new ticketing system, everyone boarding in Manhattan must pay the $5 fare, but passengers who spend more than $10 in the store will have the price of the ferry ride deducted from their total. Shoppers en route to Manhattan can show their receipt to the ferryman at the store?s pier to embark free of charge.

As expected, no one is eager to shell out $10 for the ride and some warned it will be bad for Red Hook overall.
?Nobody would come here if the ferry wasn?t free,? said Jonay Winters, a visitor waiting for the ride back to Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon. ?Red Hook is out of the way. People aren?t going to take a bus or a train to get here.?

Others said the ferries have been crowded, but don?t like the congestion pricing solution that Ikea is imposing.

?They shouldn?t charge more, they should just have more ferries,? said Flavia Walters.
?2009 The Brooklyn Paper