On the first Sunday of November, the Whitehall Terminal in Manhattan is the first point of contact for runners who have chosen the ferry (about 50% of the participants) as transportation to the starting area of the NYC Marathon on Staten Island.
New York Road Runners (NYRR) volunteers make sure that the flow of athletes is moving towards the boarding area.
Starting from 5:00 in the morning, with a frequency of 15 minutes, ferries packed with runners leave for Staten Island.
Athletes and volunteers occupy the different floors of the large orange ferry that in about 25 minutes connects the far south of Manhattan to Staten Island.
Arrival on Staten Island reveals the Verrazzano Bridge, while the runners disembark the ferry.
From the moment athletes arrive at St George Ferry Terminal, they are directed by staff from NYRR and NYPD to one of the 850 special buses and transported to near the Verrazzano Bridge. The journey from the ferry to the start area can take more than one hour, time which runners spend mostly in queues or crammed on buses.
