FL: Pinellas wants to expand the Cross Bay Ferry. The barrier? Hillsborough County

Pinellas County officials have big plans for the Cross Bay Ferry.

The service, which in October began motoring passengers year-round between the Tampa Convention Center and the Port of St. Petersburg, is currently operated by a private, Boston-based company. It’s subsidized by Tampa, St. Petersburg and their respective counties.

Pinellas County’s transit authority wants to buy its own boat, operate the service locally and expand its hours and frequency. In time, officials hope the ferry can expand from seasonal recreation to a bona fide transit option for commuters.

But there’s a major potential obstacle in the way of these grand ambitions: Hillsborough County.

Since 2022, Hillsborough has been sitting on a nearly $5 million federal grant to buy a new boat. The Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority doesn’t plan to use that money. The grant will expire and return to the federal government within two years, said Scott Drainville, CEO of Hillsborough’s transit authority.

Pinellas wants to see the grant transferred across the bay. The transaction would cost Hillsborough nothing and would keep dollars in the region.

But some Hillsborough County leaders are against the transfer. At a meeting earlier this month, Republican Commissioner Joshua Wostal offered a successful motion to delay a decision. He accused Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority CEO Brad Miller of trying to bypass the will of his own board, which has not held a formal vote on whether it wants to purchase a boat and operate the Cross Bay Ferry.

“That’s very disrespectful to the taxpayers of Pinellas County,” Wostal said in an interview. “That you have a behind-the-scenes bureaucrat trying to transition them into another financial liability.”

John King, a citizen appointee to Hillsborough’s transit authority board, said he thought Pinellas was trying to “circumvent the federal appropriations process.” He argued the dollars should return to the federal government, and then Pinellas can compete for the funds like other localities.

If Hillsborough doesn’t send Pinellas the money, it would be yet another blow to regional cooperation — and it would limit a transit option in an area struggling with clogged roads and traffic fatalities.

“If we send this money back to the federal government, we’ll probably never get it back,” said Tampa City Council Member Luis Viera, chairperson of the Hillsborough transit authority’s board and a supporter the transfer.

Miller, the Pinellas transit CEO, said a local transfer was possible. U.S. Department of Transportation staff instructed him to get local approval for the transfer first, before requesting final approval from the federal government, he said.

The Department of Transportation did not respond to questions about the grant.

What happens next?

Hillsborough County officials will discuss the $5 million grant at a March 5 meeting. It’s unclear when Hillsborough’s transit authority board, composed of county and city of Tampa leaders, will make a final decision on the transfer.

It’s also not guaranteed that Pinellas officials would agree to expand the ferry service even if the grant were transferred. Kathleen Peters, another Pinellas County commissioner who sits on its transit board, wrote in a text that she’d only support “true transit.”

But Hillsborough officials may take the decision out of their neighbors’ hands if they vote down the transfer.

“Regional collaboration and regional unity is something that is talked about in meetings with each other but is rarely ever practiced,” said Pinellas County Commissioner Chris Latvala, who supports the transfer.

The history of regionwide transit in Tampa Bay is fraught. The Tampa Bay Area Regional Transit Authority shut down in 2023. Gov. Ron DeSantis for years vetoed state funds to the organization, and local counties eventually began holding back contributions.

Now local transportation leaders are, at the urging of the state Legislature, studying the possibility of merging Hillsborough’s, Pinellas’ and Pasco’s transportation planning organizations. But some elected officials, especially those on the Tampa City Council, have been reluctant to cede more power in transportation planning to the sprawling counties that surround them.

Regional transportation planning requires a delicate dance, said Darden Rice, chief planning and community affairs officer at Pinellas’ transit authority. All sides have to see a benefit to cooperation.

“It takes some brokering. It’s relationship building. It takes time to keep people engaged on the same goals,” she said.

Why oppose ferry improvements?

At a time when cost-cutting has become central to the Republican governing ethos, the ferry project is seen by some as wasteful.

Shelling out $5 million for a service that had 72,000 riders last season is not cost effective, Wostal said, compared to spending on city bus routes that shuttle more than a million riders each year. He’s also skeptical about the parent company of the ferry: Hornblower Group, which filed for bankruptcy last year.

Local governments asked Pinellas’ transit authority to take the lead in negotiating a new, cheaper contract for the ferry later this year, said Rice, project manager for the Cross Bay Ferry. Many of Wostal’s complaints could be resolved if Pinellas has a local boat, she said.

“If PSTA has a passenger ferry boat, I think it helps increase competition for some of our local operators to get a leg up,” Rice said.

Local operators won’t have to supply a boat — just the labor and cash to oversee maintenance and operations, she said. The private contractor would assume liability if the boat is damaged and needs repairs.

Finding a local operator will likely reduce how much local governments have to chip in to operate the ferry, Rice said. If Pinellas’ transit authority owns the boat, staff estimates that the authority will get about $1 million in annual federal disbursements to make more improvements to the service, including moving the St. Petersburg stop to a temporary dock downtown, increasing frequency and reducing the round-trip fare from $24.

Currently, the ferry takes off from each port every three hours on Fridays and Saturdays. It operates less frequently other days and doesn’t operate at all most Mondays and Tuesdays.

Whether Tampa Bay sees a more dependable, locally operated ferry depends on whether Pinellas’ transit officials can convince Hillsborough of their argument: that “this is a win-win for everybody,” Rice said.

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