PANYNJ to pilot weekend ferry service for PATH riders

Starting March 29, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) will offer a six-weekend pilot ferry service between the Paulus Hook Terminal in Jersey City and the World Financial Center Terminal in New York City for weekend riders who would normally use Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) rail service between New Jersey and Lower Manhattan.

The ferry offers an alternative to PATH weekend riders for service typically provided at the Exchange Place and World Trade Center stations, which will be closed most weekends throughout 2014, authority officials said in a press release.

PATH is in the midst of a weekend outage schedule for an array of projects, including post-Sandy desalination, track repairs, life safety and security work, lighting and communications, as well as recovering schedule time lost due to Hurricane Sandy to implement positive train control-related safety improvements.

BillyBey Ferry Co. will provide the service under contract with the authority, with the service automatically ending the weekend of May 3-4, unless authority officials determine there's sufficient ridership to continue.