The ferry has places for cars, but you must reserve those early, just as with Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.
People like to come over with a bike, or by foot and rent a bike.
For some reason, it has not, and will probably never be, Nantucketized. There are no trophy houses and no tony shops here, although it boasts restaurants that the pickiest New Yorker would love. In autumn, though, you practically have Block Island to yourself. Most of its restaurants and beautiful century-old Victorian hotels stay open for a few more months, but you can swim alone on the state beach and set up a picnic on what looks like a vast Scottish moor and never see another person until you're back in the tiny, only, town of New Shoreham. Better still, in autumn, you'll see more birds than people.