The fare for the Staten Island Ferry was still a nickel each way when I moved out here in 1967. Ten cents -- on which you could have fed yourself a meal during the Depression -- hardly bought you anything at that time; even candy bars and gum had gone up to a dime. But it got you a round-trip, one- hour ride across the harbor and back on the boat, unquestionably the biggest bargain in a town growing increasingly expensive.

Not until the early '70s did the debate begin over bumping the fare to a quarter (that went into effect in August of '75); and, fifteen years later almost to the day, it jumped to fifty cents round-trip (in August 1990). As it increased five-fold from that original ten cents, I got to see it for the political football it was. I also began to see that fare as a symbol, emblematic of Staten Island's sense of separation from the rest of New York City and the city's alienation from the Island. Whatever other form of transportation you took, you had to pay to get here, and you had to pay to leave.

By 1990 I felt myself enough of an Islander to join in the debate over what turned out to be the final bump, and in late May of that year I sent the following letter (never published, of course) to the New York Times.

To the editor:
Speaking as a long-time Staten Islander, I'd like to argue in favor of the imminent fare increase for the Staten Island Ferry -- with a significant modification.

There's no question that the current fare -- a quarter round-trip -- does not cover the ferry's basic operating costs, any more than its fondly-remembered predecessor did. A nickel each way was no less ridiculous in 1965 than twelve-and-a-half cents is today. Of course it's had to be subsidized for decades, and it's high time that stopped.

But why has it been subsidized for so long? Because Staten Islanders share some special privilege? Hardly. Rather, it's because they bear a special burden.

First, there is no pedestrian access to and from Staten Island. NONE. One can leave Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens by foot, or by bicycle, and connect up to one or more of the other boroughs. Not Staten Islanders. None of the Island's four bridges -- including the Verrazano-Narrows -- has pedestrian walkways. So we're stuck here.

Second, the ferry is our only pedestrian link with the rest of the city. Unless we drive our cars in to work over the Verrazano, there's no other way for us to interact with the life of the rest of the city. The building of a subway connection to the Island -- initiated under the administration of Hulan Jack -- died aborning. So we are forced to use the ferry in order to be part of the life of the metropolis.

Third, despite the fact that they are divisions of the city's transportation system, neither the Staten Island buses nor the S.I. Rapid Transit elevated train issues transfers for either the ferry ride or any Manhattan bus or train. What we have, in short, is not a "municipal transit system" but only a borough-wide transit system -- and not a comprehensive one at that.

This means that any Islander who works in any other borough (and is too far away to walk to the ferry on one side or the other) pays four full city transit fares just to get to work and back. Presently that's $4.60; add the current ferry fare and it's $4.85. The proposed increase will make it $5.10 -- considerably more than most residents of any other boroughs pay.

So, while the ferry fare must indeed rise, it shouldn't do so at the expense of Staten Islanders. What's the solution? I can think of two -- both simple, both equitable. One would be to raise the fare even further -- to one dollar -- for all users save Island residents. Tourists will not balk at paying a buck for the trip -- nor will honeymooners, prom-goers, and the others who use it as an inexpensive adventure. The second option would be to start issuing commuter tickets or transfers on the ferry-bound Staten Island buses and trains that would allow Islanders a free (or much reduced) fare at the transit connections on the Manhattan side to us, and some equivalent for the return trip.

The first of these options involves issuing a resident identification pass to Islanders. The second does not. Without thus alleviating a genuine hardship that no city administrator or editorialist bothers to mention, anyone who mindlessly supports this fare increase is simply adding fuel to the fires of secession. If you who live in the rest of the city want to keep dumping your garbage here, and insist on parking that floating nuclear Pinto, the homeport fleet, on our shore, you owe us that minimal courtesy.

Sincerely yours,

/s/ A. D. Coleman

My proposal for a resident pass, though somewhat cumbersome, stood in the realm of the possible -- witness the resident stickers that first got you discounts on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and now lower your tolls on the other bridges as well. The plan for free transfers was eminently feasible even then. Mind you, I don't credit myself with any particular originality or creativity for this idea. If an average citizen like me could think of it, others certainly could have, and should have, and probably did. Which makes one wonder why it took so long to implement such a simple and fundamentally fair solution to a long- standing inequity.

The MetroCard system introduced this past July 4th finally solved the problem of the MTA's double-dipping into Islanders' pockets for bus and train fares. And, on the same day, the bill introduced in April of this year by City Councilman Jerome X. O'Donovan (D-North Shore) to permanently eliminate the ferry fare went into effect, making it a free ride for everyone henceforth. All of which demonstrates either that good things come to those who wait or that God helps those who help themselves.

The editorial response to these changes from the city's major daily and weekly papers proved revealing. None of them that I saw spoke of righting a protracted injustice; instead, they chose to interpret it, almost unanimously, as Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Gov. George Pataki trying to buy the generally conservative Staten Island vote (or throwing a bone to it in gratitude) by cutting Islanders a special deal. (I'm oversimplifying here, but not by much.) This conveniently omitted the fact that these bills had widespread bipartisan support, and that the impetus for the elimination of the ferry fare came from a liberal Democrat. Beyond that, it seems to me those editorialists missed, by a good mile, the point.

Which is this: under the new laws, Staten Island -- for the first time in its history -- is fully integrated into New York City's transit system. The ferry is finally perceived as an umbilical cord joining the Island to the central city, a necessary connecting link whose subsidy the city as a whole (including the Island) will underwrite with tax revenues. The water that stands between the Island and Manhattan is no longer treated as a moat requiring a special toll, but as a gap to be spanned at the city's expense. The transfer system at long last puts Islanders on an equal footing with other users of the MTA city-wide, and ends what has in effect functioned as the fiscal penalizing of Islanders for living in this borough; it makes the Island's transit systems into true continuations of the city-wide network, not quasi-autonomous entities requiring separate and additional fares.

Of course Staten Islanders, myself included, appreciate the hard-cash savings. But some of us also welcome the symbolic gesture, which has less to do with the short-term political futures of the current Mayor and Governor than with the long-term future of the city itself. Here's how I read that gesture: Staten Island and its residents, it says, represent an essential part of New York City, to be valued and considered as such -- to not only share in the city's woes and problems but to enjoy as well the full benefits of that complex relationship.

When was the last time, in your memory, that anyone except this borough's own elected representatives in city and state government said anything like that about -- and to -- Staten Island? Mostly what we've gotten is "Eat our garbage" and "No, you can't leave." This is a new tune we're hearing, and we're not used to serenades. Maybe it represents a changed attitude, a recognition that if Staten Island truly belongs to New York City then there's a covenant to be fulfilled, one that goes both ways. This siren song may grate on the ears of the pro-secession crowd, but for those of us here who consider ourselves New Yorkers to the bone and hope to remain such, it's music to the ears.