NY Waterway Ferry from Hoboken Terminal

The routes

Two NY Waterway routes leave from the Hoboken/NJ Transit Terminal landing, right at the train station. (A third Hoboken landing at 14th Street, a mile north, runs its own Midtown service seven days a week — don’t confuse the two if you’re reading schedules.)

Exact timetables shift seasonally — check the NY Waterway app or nywaterway.com for current departures, or start from our schedules hub.

Fares and passes

The Brookfield Place run is about $9.75 one-way, plus a small fuel surcharge NY Waterway adds per ticket. Pricing is per-route, so the Midtown run differs slightly — the app shows the live number before you buy.

• 10-trip tickets and monthly passes cut the per-ride cost significantly — worth it from about two round trips a week.
• Where to buy: the NY Waterway app (easiest), or the ticket windows at the terminal before boarding.
• No transfers to or from PATH, NJ Transit, or the light rail — every operator at Hoboken charges separately.

Yes, it’s roughly three times the PATH’s flat fare. What you’re buying is the crossing itself — open deck, skyline, river air — plus the free shuttles on the far side. The full mode comparison runs the numbers honestly.

The free Manhattan shuttle buses

NY Waterway’s quiet superpower: free shuttle buses on the Manhattan side, included with your ferry ticket. From the Midtown/W. 39th Street terminal, routes run seven days a week along the most popular corridors — including 34th, 42nd, 49th, and 57th Streets — plus a weekend route toward Greenwich Village and Chelsea.

• Wave the bus down. Shuttles stop at marked points along their routes, but you have to flag them — this is not obvious to first-timers standing politely at the stop.
• Track them live in the NY Waterway app, which shows shuttle GPS positions.
• Routes and spans change more often than the ferries do — confirm your route in the app before relying on it for a tight connection.

Factored in, a $9.75-ish ferry that drops you at 49th & Sixth without touching the subway starts looking like a fair deal.

Bringing a bike

The ferry is the most bike-friendly way across the Hudson from Hoboken. NY Waterway allows regular bikes, folding bikes, and Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes aboard for a small extra fee — about a dollar. House rules:

• Walk the bike on docks, gangways, and walkways — no riding.
• Stow it where the crew directs and keep it clear of aisles and doors.
• Keep it reasonably clean — the policy actually says so.

Compare that with PATH’s rush-hour bike restrictions and the 126 bus’s total lack of bike accommodation, and cyclists headed to Manhattan should default to the boat.

Boarding through 1907 ferry slips

Hoboken Terminal was built as a ferry terminal first — the Lackawanna Railroad’s trains existed to feed its boats, and Kenneth Murchison’s 1907 building put the ferry slips right into its river facade. The original service died in 1967; the slips sat derelict for decades until they were restored and ferries returned to the building in 2011.

So when you board a NY Waterway boat at the terminal, you’re using the building precisely as designed 119 years ago — the only mode here that can say that. NJ Transit is still restoring more of the historic ferry-terminal spaces upstairs; see current terminal updates and the full story on the history page.

Practical notes

• Weather matters. High winds or ice can suspend or slow service; when the river turns nasty, fall back on the PATH, which doesn’t care.
• Finding the slips: they’re on the river side of the terminal, past the waiting room — the terminal map shows the walk.
• No late-night boats. The last departures are mid-evening; after that it’s PATH or nothing. See the late-night guidance.
• Waiting for a boat? Coffee and food options in and around the terminal are in the where-to-eat guide.