New York is a city encircled by water and its metro system is set on making better use of its surrounding seas with the Citywide Ferry Service. Construction of the new fleet has just begun: the 26-metre boats are currently being made in Louisiana and Alabama and will each hold 150 passengers as well as storage space for bikes, buggies and wheelchairs. The Big Apple will soon be adding 21 ferry landings around the city to ensure that the modern fleet can smoothly connect areas such as Bay Ridge, Soundview, Astoria and Rockaway to Wall Street and parts of Midtown via six routes spanning nearly 100km of waterways. Operator Hornblower expects the ferry system to deliver an estimated 4.6 million passengers per year once it launches in summer 2017.