{"id":375492,"date":"2026-08-19T10:11:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T10:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/375492\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T10:11:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T10:11:42","slug":"bay-breeze-ferry-arrives-in-the-tampa-bay-area-for-service-to-connect-tampa-and-downtown-st-pete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/375492\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Bay Breeze’ ferry arrives in the Tampa Bay area for service to connect Tampa and downtown St. Pete"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) announced that one of its ferries for a service connecting St. Pete and Tampa<\/a> is now in the Tampa Bay area.<\/p>\n

According to the PSTA, on Monday, one of its recently purchased ferries, The Bay Breeze, arrived at the Tarpon Marine Service in Tarpon Springs, where it will be refurbished for passenger service. A second ferry, The Bay Clipper, is expected to arrive “in the coming weeks.”<\/p>\n

The Bay Breeze, which comes from San Francisco, Calif., can carry up to 250 passengers, PSTA said when it approved its purchase.<\/p>\n

“Having the Bay Breeze arrive here in Pinellas County is a major milestone and brings us one step closer to launching a reliable, sustainable, and long-term ferry service across the Bay,” CEO of PSTA Brad Miller said in a press statement. “Both the Bay Breeze and Bay Clipper are excellent vessels, and now we can get to work on the Bay Breeze by making it service-ready and doing the same once the Bay Clipper arrives.”<\/p>\n

This is part of a plan approved earlier this year by the PSTA Board of Directors. It includes the purchase, inspection and renovation of two ferries using a federal grant of $4.8 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The goal is to use these to replace the previous Cross Bay Ferry after it discontinued services a year ago. Officials aim to eventually launch a service to transport passengers from downtown St. Pete to Tampa.<\/p>\n

A Tarpon Springs city commissioner said this will bring business to local and small businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Bringing the vessels here, locally, means so much to not only the City of Tarpon Springs, but also to the families and businesses of Pinellas County and our region as a whole,” said City Commissioner Lori Weaver from Tarpon Springs. Weaver is also a PSTA Board Member.<\/p>\n

PSTA says Tarpon Marine Services, founded in 2010, is “home to the largest hydraulic lift on the west coast of Florida.”<\/p>\n

RELATED: PSTA plans to purchase 2 ferries with $4.8 million federal grant for Tampa Bay Ferry service<\/a><\/p>\n

The PSTA noted that the purchase of the boats was facilitated by Hubbard’s Ferry, the organization that will operate the service once service begins “later this year.” A specific launch date is yet to be announced by officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) announced that one of its ferries for a service connecting St. Pete…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[131772,151370,151369,12327,12824,135,9019,137,136,151368,4784],"class_list":["post-375492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-bay-breeze","tag-bay-clipper","tag-passenger-service","tag-pinellas-suncoast-transit-authority","tag-psta","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-area","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-tarpon-marine-service","tag-tarpon-springs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375492","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=375492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}