EXCLUSIVE: Free bus funded by Bally’s to connect East Bronx with Throggs Neck ferry

The Bally’s Corporation is funding a free bus that will connect Bronxites to Ferry Point Park, improving access to the Throggs Neck ferry landing.

Photo Aliya Schneider

The Bally’s Corporation will announce the launch of a new shuttle bus on Monday that will connect East Bronxites with the Throggs Neck ferry stop, which is notoriously hard to access without a car.

News of the move comes on the heels of Bally’s purchase of The Trump Organization’s license to operate the public golf course in Ferry Point Park through at least 2035, ending a contentious eight-year affiliation between the former president’s entity and the city-owned park. The purchase is part of a plan to obtain a competitive downstate full casino license, to be decided by the state Gambling Commission as early as this year.

Bally’s Chair Soohyung “Soo” Kim told the Bronx Times in an exclusive interview that while the property has great road access, it sits in a transportation desert — other than the difficult-to-get-to Throggs Neck ferry landing — with no bus or subway stops in the vicinity.

Launched in December 2021 as one of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s last hurrahs, the Ferry Point Park stop extended the Soundview route, which runs all the way down the East side of Manhattan to Wall Street. But the new landing has largely catered to drivers who can pull off the Hutchinson River Parkway and park in a free lot at Ferry Point Park, with the closest bus stop at Lafayette Avenue and the Hutchinson River Parkway service road more than a mile from the park entrance.

“It’s called the Links at Ferry Point, right? So I think making use of the ferry is actually pretty critical as part of our being responsive to the community,” Kim told the Bronx Times.

He called the bus a “long-term community-building exercise.”

The 20-passenger wheelchair-accessible bus will have 10 stops, with seven along East Tremont Avenue connecting Throggs Neck with…