The content of this book is for informational purposes only. The book will help those assigned to monitor prison and street gangs, criminal groups, or drug cartel operatives deciphering what they say or talk about. This book is language and slang commonly used by those criminals. It’s intended for those in the field of corrections and law enforcement. This book is a must-have for those tasked with intercepting mail, text messages, or listening to a telephone conversation. This book discusses words, terms, and language that some readers might consider profane, vulgar, racial, derogatory, or offensive. Slang terms are words or phrases that have a cultural definition that is different from the literal meaning. Slang expressions also change continually. Many expressions or words often have more than one purpose or meaning. Some phrases have been around so long that they have become idioms or common expressions where certain word combinations are different from their literal meaning.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the state of ferry transit operations in North America and to develop practitioner guidance for the planning, marketing, operation, and management of ferry transportation systems. The research is intended to present a uniform understanding of the status of ferries as well as options for how to approach planning and operational activities. This guidebook is intended for use by operators large and small, in publicly or privately owned operations, for the development of ferry operations as a solution to a transportation need. This research was developed through literature searches of previous studies, reviews of existing government and state documents, telephone interviews with a broad selection of ferry operators, in depth case studies of eight ferry operators and ferry systems geographically dispersed across the North American continent, and peer review of the interim documents. The main body of this report contains the case studies and a guidebook. Two appendices provide additional information to support the work documented within the main body of the report. Appendix A provides a listing of literature review sources, and Appendix B documents the results of a survey of ferry operators that was developed and implemented in this research.

This book applies the contents of a working economist’s tool-kit to explain, clearly and intuitively, when and why over the course of four centuries individuals, families, and enterprises decided to locate in or around the lower Hudson River Valley. Collectively those millions of decisions have made New York one of the twenty-first century’s few truly global cities. A recurrent analytic theme of this work is that the ups and downs of New York’s trajectory are best understood in the context of what was happening elsewhere in the broader Atlantic world. Readers will find that the Atlantic perspective viewed through an economic lens goes a long way toward clarifying otherwise quite perplexing historical events and trends.