On Monday, the Tampa Bay Times reported that former Tampa mayoral candidate Ed Turanchik sent a news release regarding a Tuesday announcement would be about “permanent ferry service.” The former Hillsborough County Commissioner and current policy adviser for the ferry operator unfortunately wouldn’t provide additional details.
“Just come,” Turanchik told the paper.
Well, thanks for the tease, Ed.
On Tuesday, Turanchick, ferry operator HMS Ferries and land development company South Swell Development Group released a business plan that calls for expanded and permanent service similar to the current Cross-Bay Ferry operating on nights and weekends between the Florida Aquarium in downtown Tampa and St. Petersburg’s Vinoy Basin.
FlaPol reports that the new service would continue with expanded hours and additional commuter routes between Williams Park in South Hillsborough and MacDill Air Force Base.
“Those trips would run every 10-15 minutes using four boats… [and] run continuously from 5:40 until 8:10 a.m. and from 4-6 p.m,” FlaPol wrote. The plan — which includes a 750-vehicle parking lot — could come to fruition as soon as 2022 if the county took up the proposal immediately.
That’s three years away, Ed.
The proposal says that the air force base route would be funded through a federal transit voucher and that HMS Ferries would assume all the financial risk for the project. No public subsidies will be needed to operate under a 20-year agreement, but the proposal does call for local governments to cover about $36 million in capital costs.
HMS Ferries and South Swell suggested seeking matching Florida Department of Transportation grants or finding money via the federal Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act which provides $30 million annually for ferry projects.
For now, the Cross-Bay Ferry is still set to run through the end of the month.
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This article appears in Apr 11-18, 2019.