A new ferry service should soon be connecting downtown Tampa and St. Petersburg. It's expected to be a big improvement on the previous ferry that ended last year.
The big change from the old Cross Bay Ferry would be having two boats instead of one.
Pinellas County transportation officials have already agreed to buy one boat.
In December, they voted to allocate $2.5 million to buy a San Francisco-based ferry for $2.5 million. They'll vote on whether to buy another on Wednesday. This would allow the service to operate seven days a week, year-round.
ALSO READ: St. Pete approves Tampa Bay Ferry funding agreement
The purchase and renovation of the boats will use a federal grant of $4.8 million.
They would dock at the Tampa Convention Center - and possibly The Pier in downtown St. Petersburg.
Brad Miller heads the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority.
"That would be two vessels that we would have here in Tampa Bay, so we could, for the first time, operate year-round, reliable ferry service. In addition, what having the two vessels here would allow us to do, and what we're planning on doing for the first time in the ferry's history, is to operate 7 days a week all year round," he said. "That will be a much more reliable, high-quality service."
Miller said they'll initially focus on the weekend, and then build up to a regular weekday commuter service.
"We're going to start out the service operating seven days a week, but focusing more of the service on the weekends and Thursday and Friday," he said, during a ceremony at the Tampa Convention Center waterfront. "That was very successful for the Cross Bay ferry service, and then try to build that commuter, that morning and evening, Monday through Friday, traffic up over time."
He said fares are going to start out at $10 each way. That's a few dollars cheaper than the old Cross Bay Ferry.
The Cross Bay service closed last year after its operator wanted to replace its faster ferry with a slower model that would have doubled the travel time to two hours.
Both Tampa and St. Petersburg last year approved an agreement that would allocate up to $350,000 a year for the new ferry. It will be operated by the Pinellas transit agency.
Tampa officials say this could eventually become a much-needed option for traffic-choked commuters.
"The city of Tampa has always been really crying out for increased transit service, and when you look around, we're surrounded by water," said Alan Clendenin, a Tampa City Council member. "It is a no-brainer that we should be using these waterways as transit options to be able to move people around the bay and to be able to have two vessels being able to go between our downtown business cores."
Fellow council member Lynn Hurtak agreed with Clendenin.
"People will be able to get across for not just vacation, they'll be able to use it as a way for locals to get to and from places, especially the Lightning games, crossing for festivals that are in downtown St. Pete that quite frankly, are a pain to get to in a car for folks in the city of Tampa," she said. "I think it's really going to open up these communities more so to each other than ever before."
