Boat registrations decline on Long Island

Daily Point

Suffolk sees a 7.4% drop in boat registrations over the past decade, and Nassau 6%

Long Island’s 400-mile coastline brings billions in revenue, especially through its thriving recreational boating culture. The motorboat industry, however, has been going through choppy waters.

In 2025, there were around 84,000 recreational boats on Long Island registered with the New York Department of Motor Vehicles, making up 20% of the state’s total recreational boat inventory. All motorized boats are required to be registered with the DMV. The most popular type of motorized boat registered on Long Island was Class 1, which is between 16 and 26 feet in length, mainly consisting of bowriders, small sailboats and deck boats.

In the last decade, boat registrations in Nassau County dropped 6%, with 26,203 registered in 2025 compared with 27,891 in 2016. In Suffolk County, 58,501 recreational boats were registered with the DMV in 2025 compared with 63,143 in 2016, a 7.4% decline. Registrations dropped statewide by 6.4%, from 446,177 to 417,793. Out-of-state boat registrations dropped as well. There were 13,611 boats registered to owners residing out of state in 2016 compared with 13,022 in 2025. Boat owners are now older, with 60 as the median age.

Unlike cars, boat registrations are valid for up to three years and can reflect the level of interest in boating. Declining registrations don’t necessarily imply that Long Islanders are retreating from a life on the water — they could have boats stored away, or worse, are riding them without renewed registrations. There is also a problem of abandoned crafts.

Last year, the Nassau County Police Department issued 153 tickets to boaters for operating boats with nonexistent or expired registrations. Meanwhile, the Suffolk County Police Department issued 20 tickets.

Boats registered with the U.S. Coast Guard are exempt from registering with the DMV. These include boats larger than five tons, and commercial vessels used for fishing or international travel. The Point was unable to receive a breakdown of the data from the Coast Guard.

While recreational boating has not lost its appeal, boat ownership has largely declined nationwide. A report from the National Marine Manufacturers Association, or NMMA, last year found that economic uncertainties, rising mortgage and insurance costs, and the responsibilities that come with boat ownership are turning away younger boat enthusiasts who would prefer to rent than own. The high cost of gas is also expected to dampen spirits this summer.

The NMMA report found there are more boat owners in the U.S. in their 70s today than in their 40s. The industry has seen a 9% decline in sales of powerboats through 2024, a trend that is expected to continue.

Despite the low tides, New York is still among the most popular states for boating, with consumers spending an estimated $1.2 billion on new powerboats, outboard engines, boat trailers, and aftermarket accessories in 2024. The rise in the popularity of boating clubs has also kept the boating economy afloat on Long Island, with membership fees being more attractive than ownership costs.

— Karthika Namboothiri karthika.namboothiri@newsday.com

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Reference Point

Slowly crawling up Route 110 for decades

Suffolk County just announced plans for Long Island’s first-ever “bus rapid transit line” that will run north-south along Route 110 every 7½ or 15 minutes, an idea that has been stuck for decades.

LI’s “transportation dilemma” was clearly identified in 1966.

“Everyone, it seems, talks about the transportation problem on Long Island but nobody does anything about it,” Newsday’s business editor Francis Wood wrote in a column about the East Farmingdale Industrial Association. The manufacturing group had held a meeting to advocate for bus service for workers from Amityville to their fast-growing industrial area a few miles north.

“The north-south transportation without an auto is impossible out here,” said Arthur Bauer, the association’s leader and president of South Shore Metal Products. “One new plant opening on Allen Boulevard is going to need about 200 people and they don’t know where they’ll get them,” he said.

Later in 1966, the issue made its way to New York State’s Public Service Commission, where the association and county officials issued statements about workers' “dire need” for bus transportation. While the PSC reviewed private provider applications, manufacturing companies started supplying station wagon carpools free of charge to help with the labor shortage.

By the end of 1966, the PSC gave two bus companies permission to start service between North Amityville and the Farmingdale industrial complex, with Long Island officials “very pleased” by the decision.

That covered the first three miles, but left a long stretch to go to Huntington, where Suffolk County’s proposed new line would reach.

In the 1970s, traffic swelled along the Route 110 corridor as the area's employment grew to 60,000. Newsday examined the corridor’s “enormous potential and its burgeoning problems” in 1978.

“Getting as many cars as possible off Route 110 should also be the goal,” the editorial board argued. “That of course would necessitate the creation of adequate bus service.” The editorial went on to say that Suffolk County has resisted the expansion of its Metropolitan Suburban Bus Authority service. “Neglect of essential transportation needs could destroy both the excitement and the potential,” the board concluded.

New road construction and even a monorail were proposed by local groups and residents to ease congestion. The MTA, which owned Republic Airport at the time, commissioned a study on bus transportation.

“Travel to work along Route 110 is becoming so difficult during rush hours that fast, frequent bus service is clearly needed,” the editorial board wrote in 1979. Shortly after, the Long Island Regional Planning Board revealed planning recommendations for Route 110 as the first part of a three-year study to spur the Island’s economic development. Highlights included a new bus depot at the former drive-in movie site by the Long Island Expressway, housing, widened roads, and overpasses over LIRR grade crossings.

“Implementation would be up to state, county and town governments [but] changes are likely,” said bicounty Regional Planning Board director Lee Koppelman.

But little happened. As that study continued into the 1980s, a committee of Long Island business groups called the Route 110 Task Force came together, frustrated that at rush hour you could probably ride a bicycle twice as fast as being in a car, said Koppelman.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several bus experiments were tried. There was an idea for an East Farmingdale bus-train transportation hub near the LIRR and a pilot program of red 110 Clipper buses that DOT tried to bring central Suffolk workers to office parks on Route 110. Both failed to attract enough riders with a lack of cooperation by employers to blame.

By 2001, there was piecemeal limited bus service provided by Long Island Bus, Suffolk County Transit and Huntington Area Rapid Transit to stops like Walt Whitman Mall. In 2009, then Babylon Town Supervisor Steve Bellone and Huntington Town Supervisor Frank Petrone initiated a study of a bus system along the Route 110 corridor with $150,000 of funding from multiple sources, including the MTA.

At the time, the editorial board was supportive. “For those who think of it as the 110 'horrordor,' this study could be the beginning of a way out of the jam,” the board wrote.

When Bellone became Suffolk County executive, he continued to push for high-speed north-south bus service as part of his Connect Long Island Plan. Ultimately, much of the original plan was stalled because of funding and feasibility, but Suffolk’s bus lines were updated as part of the Reimagine Transit Initiative to what they are now. Today, the S1 line that runs up the Nassau-Suffolk border has half-hourly weekday service.

With a total cost of $80 million and operational date of 2031, bus transit may finally be moving forward up Route 110. 

— Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com

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