From a Susquehanna river crossing and three Fire Island boats to the free Staten Island Ferry, short hops that stand in for a bridge or a road.
Most of the Mid-Atlantic crossings on this site are survivors of an older road network. Two are kept alive by non-profits: the wooden sternwheelers at Millersburg, which their association calls the last working boats of their kind in the country, and the paddle-wheel barge across the Chautauqua Lake narrows at Bemus Point, crewed by volunteers ever since a bridge went up just to the south. Both are summer boats, tied up once the season ends.
Delaware's Woodland Ferry is the public exception. DelDOT runs it over the tidal Nanticoke for nothing, on a weekday shift with a break at lunch, because a bridge there has never been worth the money. Fire Island goes the other way, with three private passenger boats across the Great South Bay to communities no road reaches. Kismet's comes from Bay Shore, where even the gate you leave from depends on the day of the week. Davis Park's comes from Patchogue, run by a different company whose tickets the other operators do not accept, and every fare has one price in cash and another by card. Cherry Grove's leaves from River Road in Sayville, on the Sayville Ferry Service, whose tickets also cover Fire Island Pines.
New York Harbor holds the one crossing here that runs on a city's scale. The Staten Island Ferry charges nothing in either direction, covers 5.2 miles in about 25 minutes and never stops: every 15 minutes at rush hour, every 30 minutes at night and at weekends.