Ferry service returned to the Hudson River between Newburgh and Beacon this weekend as organizers began a two-weekend pilot they hope will demonstrate demand for a more permanent connection between the sister cities.

Tickets for both weekends of the pilot sold out as organizers began using the four days of rides to gauge how residents would use a connection that could serve commuters, visitors and businesses on both sides of the Hudson.

“On this first ferry, we see people that are actually commuting to work. We see people that are commuters to New York City taking it for nostalgia’s sake because they used to take it,” Save the Ferry organizer Naomi Hersson-Ringskog said. “We see people that are attracted to the mission of the campaign and coming for that reason.”

The pilot is the latest effort by Save the Ferry, a grassroots campaign that has held rallies, attended MTA board meetings, and met with elected officials since regular service ended. The group also launched an online petition calling for the restoration and expansion of the ferry, which has collected more than 1600 signatures.

Passengers are also being surveyed about their trips, including how they reached the ferry and what they did after crossing the river. Hersson-Ringskog said organizers hope the responses will provide an indication of demand and passengers’ travel habits while showing how the two cities could be connected economically and culturally.

New York Boat Company is operating its ferry, called the Evening Star, between the two cities during the Oct. 3-4 and Oct. 10-11 pilot weekends, with fares set at $1. The dates were timed in part to coincide with events taking place in both cities over the two weekends, including Porchfest and Spirit of Beacon Day during the first.

The $1 fare was deliberate, Hersson-Ringskog said, both to keep the rides accessible and to give organizers a way to manage passengers rather than offering the service for free.

The pilot was scaled back from the summer-and-fall program organizers had hoped to run. After the Orange County IDA pledged up to $100,000 in matching funds, the campaign raised $17,500 toward the match, bringing the available funding to $35,000, according to Hersson-Ringskog.

Despite the smaller scale, the sold-out first weekend brought together riders who saw different uses for a renewed ferry connection.

Fiona Drayne and her partner moved to Newburgh about a year ago and both work in Beacon. They currently use the shuttle to cross the river from their Liberty Street home.

“This is a really easy way for us to get across and we’re hoping that we can resurrect interest,” Drayne said as she waited for the first ferry. “We rely on it for commuting right now because we just moved up from the city and we don’t have a car.”

Gregory Nato knows the former ferry as a commuter. The Newburgh resident moved to the city in 2014 and said he used the ferry on weekdays for years to reach the train in Beacon.

After service ended, Nato said what had been about a nine-minute ferry ride became roughly a 25-minute trip across the bridge, with the journey home sometimes taking even longer.

“When it was discontinued, it was an intense hardship,” Nato said. “It was a great way to start the day. It was very zen. It was just a beautiful thing that Newburgh and Beacon had and it’s sad that it’s gone.”

Niki McFadden, who moved to the area in January, said she drives to Beacon or Poughkeepsie every day to catch Metro-North into Manhattan.

“There’s very little parking in the Beacon train station,” McFadden said. “Being able to get the boat across would be so much better than circling the train station.”

The range of passengers and reasons for making the crossing reflects a larger question about any return of the ferry and whether it should serve commuters, weekend travelers or visitors during busy tourism seasons. Hersson-Ringskog said those purposes are not mutually exclusive and the ferry could support commuting while also bringing people to businesses, cultural destinations and recreational opportunities in both cities.

“It’s everything,” Hersson-Ringskog said. “The challenge of this campaign is that it hits on so many aspects. It is intersectional and it will also play an important part for the present day, but especially the future.”

But Beacon Mayor Lee Kyriacou expressed reservations about commuter ferry service while showing more optimism about a weekend or seasonal operation. A former 35-year commuter to New York City, Kyriacou said that after learning the extent of the subsidy for the commuter ferry, he would rather see that money used to improve Beacon’s Metro-North station, which he said lacks bathrooms and an actual station building.

A weekend or seasonal model, however, could have a different future.

“That’s going to be a home run,” Kyriacou said. “That’s going to work economically.”

Kyriacou said there have already been inquiries from other boat operators and predicted some form of service could be in place next year. He said Newburgh organizers did most of the work behind the current pilot, while his role involved helping secure a dock on the Beacon side after access to the former Metro-North dock was lost.

Newburgh Mayor Torrance Harvey also supported the pilot, saying he had wanted weekend service when the previous ferry was operating. Harvey said a weekend ferry would allow residents like him to cross the river for Beacon’s restaurants, Dia Beacon and other attractions.

“We were always a little sad that this ferry didn’t run on the weekends for tourism and for the two queen cities of the Hudson.”

Hersson-Ringskog said the next step will depend on the ridership data and support from elected officials. She said organizers are open to continuing weekend service during high-tourism seasons and pursuing another pilot during the summer and fall.

“I think we have to start incrementally to sort of prove its efficacy,” Hersson-Ringskog said.