The Cross Bay Ferry will be docking for good by the end of April
By Kiley Petracek
April 16, 2025 at 5:37 PM EDT
The Hillsborough County Board of Commissioners voted to end its contract with the company that operates the Cross Bay Ferry early.
The Cross Bay Ferry service, which brought passengers between St. Petersburg and Tampa for nearly a decade, will be permanently docked for the foreseeable future on April 30.
After setting a record last year of 72,000 passengers, this was the first year the ship was planning to run year-round.
The decision to end services comes from a vote at the Hillsborough County Commissioners meeting on Wednesday.
The operator, HMS Ferries, wrote in a memo last month that they planned to use a different vessel after April 30 — one that would take twice as long as the already 50-minute one-way trip.
ALSO READ: The Cross Bay Ferry's final voyage might be coming soon
The boat would hold the same number of passengers, but would slow from the current cruising speed of 27 knots down to 15 knots.
The Cross Bay Ferry has previously faced bankruptcy and switched operation companies in 2021.
Officials from Hillsborough County, the cities of Tampa and St. Pete, and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) were not on board with that plan, and HMS was unable to provide a quicker ship.
Services are now scheduled to end on April 30, five months before HMS’ contract was set to end.
That early end date means St. Pete will save around $102,000.
Hillsborough County has an unused federal grant of nearly $5 million to purchase a new boat for the service.
Several media outlets have reported that the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority is interested in starting its own ferry, perhaps as early as October, and is hoping Hillsborough will contribute those unused funds.
“Regional collaboration and regional unity is something that is talked about in meetings with each other but is rarely ever practiced,” Pinellas County Commissioner Chris Latvala told the Tampa Bay Times.
After setting a record last year of 72,000 passengers, this was the first year the ship was planning to run year-round.
The decision to end services comes from a vote at the Hillsborough County Commissioners meeting on Wednesday.
The operator, HMS Ferries, wrote in a memo last month that they planned to use a different vessel after April 30 — one that would take twice as long as the already 50-minute one-way trip.
ALSO READ: The Cross Bay Ferry's final voyage might be coming soon
The boat would hold the same number of passengers, but would slow from the current cruising speed of 27 knots down to 15 knots.
The Cross Bay Ferry has previously faced bankruptcy and switched operation companies in 2021.
Officials from Hillsborough County, the cities of Tampa and St. Pete, and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) were not on board with that plan, and HMS was unable to provide a quicker ship.
Services are now scheduled to end on April 30, five months before HMS’ contract was set to end.
That early end date means St. Pete will save around $102,000.
Hillsborough County has an unused federal grant of nearly $5 million to purchase a new boat for the service.
Several media outlets have reported that the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority is interested in starting its own ferry, perhaps as early as October, and is hoping Hillsborough will contribute those unused funds.
“Regional collaboration and regional unity is something that is talked about in meetings with each other but is rarely ever practiced,” Pinellas County Commissioner Chris Latvala told the Tampa Bay Times.