{"id":36613,"date":"2025-11-07T00:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T00:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/36613\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T00:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T00:25:08","slug":"tampa-st-pete-ok-funding-for-new-tampa-bay-ferry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/36613\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa, St. Pete OK funding for new ‘Tampa Bay Ferry’"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Both the city of St. Pete and the city of Tampa voted Thursday on their part of an agreement that would secure a new cross bay ferry service, with each city giving its approval.<\/p>\n

Tampa approved its part Thursday morning, giving the OK to a five-year Interlocal Agreement, including up to $350,000 a year in funding for the new ferry. It will be called the \u201cTampa Bay Ferry,\u201d though the name change may not become official until later.<\/p>\n

Under the proposed agreement, PSTA would oversee ferry operations. Pinellas County\u2019s public transit provider is using part of a $4.8 million federal grant to buy at least one boat that would be used for the new ferry service. Tampa Bay Sea Taxi, which is operated by locally-owned Hubbard’s Marina, has been selected under a preliminary agreement to operate the new service.<\/a><\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

St. Pete and Tampa both voted Thursday on their portion of ferry agreement\u00a0\u00a0
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With the votes complete, work will begin to find a boat\u00a0
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PSTA says tickets will likely cost less\u00a0
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New ferry service will not use former Cross Bay ferry name\u00a0<\/p>\n

St. Pete<\/a>\u00a0voted Thursday afternoon on an interlocal agreement that would have it contribute up to $350,000 each year to the ferry service as well as provide docking at no additional charge.<\/p>\n

PSTA will vote on their portion in early December.<\/p>\n

Darden Rice, Chief Planning and Community Affairs Officer for PSTA, says that the new agreement will allow them to cut down on the cost of tickets.<\/p>\n

She says because the former Cross Bay ferry was run by an outside company, HMS Ferries, the crew and the boat were here seasonally from Massachusetts, making it more expensive to operate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were paying room and board for their employees that came down from Massachusetts,\u201d Rice said. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to have that now. That\u2019s just one way we can drive down costs and pass the savings to those who will be using the ferry in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rice says PSTA can also supply diesel fuel at below cost and use their annual capital funds to help grow the service.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be bringing in new boats, hopefully more than one,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s how we\u2019re going to be able to provide more service\u2026 better span. Just drive those costs down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kristine Slayton says she would love to take her family of five on the ferry more often. She did it once earlier this year during spring break before the former Cross Bay ferry shut down, and she says it cost her more than $100.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo my hope is that there will be a more affordable, daily transportation option,\u201d Slayton said. \u201cWe headed over to Tampa, enjoyed a day at the aquarium\u2026. It was beautiful, the kids loved it. It was just the only thing we got to do during spring break because of how expensive it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

PSTA has not yet determined what the new ferry tickets will cost or when the ferry is expected to launch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Both the city of St. Pete and the city of Tampa voted Thursday on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1564,274,276,2200,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-36613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-angie-angers","tag-app-top-stories","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}