Well the Rockaways used to be commuter rail back in the bad old days. About a half hour from midtown by the LIRR.  It also linked with the suburbs, Jamaica and Flatbush in twenty minutes.  Now it is 45 minutes from East New York.  That train always made more money than the Port Washington Branch of the LIRR and ran with greater capacity utilization.  It is appropriately commuter rail service.  When you started punishing the residents of the Rockaways with the much slower service on the A train you effectively devalued the Real Estate in the Rockaways.  The ferry service that Mr. Weiner so eloquently proposes is just a way of getting the ROckaways transportation service back to where it was before the MTA got started sucking value out of NYC.