NYC Ferry at Hunters Point South Landing (via NYC Ferry)
Aug. 17, 2018 By Nathaly Pesantez
The Hunters Point South Landing is out of service once more after coming back online from a recent outage.
Access to the landing has been cut off since Aug. 16 due to “extremely low tides”, according to a NYC Ferry alert.
East River vessels are instead being redirected to the Long Island City ferry landing until further notice.
The changing tides affect how a vessel navigates through the water, with tides on either extreme posing different issues to a ship. The National Oceanic Service, for example, says that for ships to navigate safely through shallow waters close attention needs to be paid to the time and height of the tides.
In addition, tide levels at the Newtown Creek have recently been recorded at higher and lower than average amounts. The Newtown Creek twitter account, for example, tweeted earlier today about a low tide 27 inches below its average level. “This is a really low one!” the tweet reads.
An EDC spokesperson told the LIC Post, however, that following recent repair work to the gangway, a tidal shift caused the barge to stick onto the landing’s piles.
“As such, we closed the Hunters Point South landing out of an abundance of caution,” the spokesperson said. “We’re working around the clock with our engineers to resolve the issue and reopen the landing as soon as possible.”
Some, however, expressed confusion over the recent outage to the landing for what appears to be integral part of the waterways.
“There are two low tides every day,” wrote one Twitter user. “This makes no sense.”
“You didn’t know about tides when you built the dock at Hunters Point?” asked another user.
One user said there’s already a solution to the tidal issue.
“Your regular reminder that we solved this issue 135 years ago by building bridges!” the Twitter user said.
The Hunters Point South Landing recently came online on Aug. 14—two days before the recent closure— after a 12-day loss of service due to repairs needed to the gangway.
Update 6/17 2:55 p.m. – Article updated with statement from EDC.
