Water taxi with history of low ridership gets $50,000 monthly subsidy from Miami Beach

Miami Beach officials have long been searching for aquatic solutions to transport people across Biscayne Bay to downtown Miami while avoiding traffic gridlock.

Multiple efforts have failed. But the city is still trying to make a water taxi work — this time, through a no-bid deal that will award $50,000 per month to Poseidon Ferry, a company that was previously forced to suspend service twice in recent years due to low ridership and financial struggles. The publicly funded pilot program, which will cost $600,000 and run for one year, is expected to start this summer.

That amount of money will subsidize about half of the company’s annual operating costs, city officials say. But riders will still have to pay to take the ferry. One-way fares will be $12 for adults, although tickets for Miami Beach residents will be discounted to $5, according to a concession agreement between the city and the company.

Trips between Maurice Gibb Memorial Park in South Beach and Sea Isle Marina in mainland Miami will depart once an hour from each location, as they did before, despite city officials opining that departures every 30 minutes would ultimately be necessary for the ferry to gain traction.

Nonetheless, Miami Beach officials say they’re bullish on the pilot program, which was approved after the City Commission waived competitive bidding requirements last June.

The goal, transportation director Jose Gonzalez said in a statement, “is to provide commuters with a public transportation option to help de-congest our roadways and help the city meet its long-term strategic goal of becoming less car-centric.” Most water transportation systems in the United States “operate with some financial assistance from the federal, state or local government by way of subsidies,” Gonzalez added.

Matthew Gultanoff, the director of transit advocacy group Better Streets Miami Beach, said he generally supports efforts to provide alternatives to driving and is hopeful the 149-person ferry will “move the needle” this time around.

But he said he’s skeptical the program will make a substantial impact. While the ferry will let passengers off near the Adrienne Arsht Center Metromover station in mainland Miami, Gultanoff said limited public transit options on the Miami Beach side could make it impractical for those residents to utilize the ferry compared to the effort it takes to drive or ride a bicycle across the Venetian Causeway.

“This isn’t what residents are asking for,” Gultanoff said. “We want a quick, reliable, inexpensive way to get to and from the mainland. The water is probably the least effective way to do any of those.”

Poseidon CEO Johnathan Silvia, who declined an interview request for this story, has told city officials that financial support will help make his business model feasible.

“We look forward to providing an eco-friendly waterborne transportation alternative to the residents of Miami Beach,” Silvia told the Miami Herald in a statement.

Looking for solutions

Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner has championed ferry service as one way to address the city’s traffic nightmare, calling not only for a water taxi across Biscayne Bay but also for north-south water transportation within Miami Beach. Yet Meiner has also advocated for the city to explore grant funding options to subsidize a free water taxi service for residents, saying the Poseidon fares were “too high.”

Meiner cast the lone vote against the bid waiver for Poseidon last June, saying he would have preferred a competitive process.

City officials said in October that they were hoping to launch the pilot in time for Art Week last December. Poseidon has since touted various launch dates for the new pilot program on its website: April 15, June 1 and, most recently, June 17.

Gonzalez said there’s no official start date as of yet but that the program will begin sometime this summer, after the city has installed an ADA-compliant ramp at Maurice Gibb Memorial Park.

According to the concession agreement the city inked with Poseidon in March, seniors, people with disabilities and military personnel will pay a discounted $6 fare for a one-way ride, and children under 12 will ride for free. The company will also offer a weekly pack of 10 one-way trips for $30 and a monthly pack of 40 trips for $120, according to the agreement. Riders can bring bicycles and scooters on board for free. (Previously there was a $2 fee.)

Ferry trips will be about 18 minutes each way, city officials said. Service will run daily from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., with the boat departing from Miami Beach every hour on the half-hour and from Miami every hour on the hour, except between 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. That schedule will be followed “regardless of whether or not there is demand for water taxi services,” according to the concession agreement.

READ MORE: Want to get from Miami Beach to Miami without a car? A ferry has started service again

Despite lamenting the city’s traffic woes, the Miami Beach City Commission voted earlier this year to oppose a Miami-Dade County plan to extend the Metromover to South Beach, which would create the first mass transit option connecting Miami Beach to the mainland. Homeowners in the South of Fifth and West Avenue neighborhoods near the proposed project have vehemently opposed it.

“There is a lot of opportunity to improve the mobility of residents, employees and visitors to Miami Beach,” Gultanoff said. “Unfortunately, it seems that the policy-setters have always been tackling it around the edges.”

Financial struggles

Six weeks after the Poseidon Ferry first set sail — without public funding — in November 2020, the service was suspended due to low ridership of about 70 people per day during the COVID-19 pandemic. The boat relaunched service in August 2021, but low ridership again forced it to dock at the end of 2022.

At a public meeting last May, a representative for Poseidon Ferry LLC said the company had lost about $500,000 during its final year of operation in 2022. Previously, the ferry departed from Bentley Bay Marina, a private dock at which the company was paying about $25,000 per month, contributing to its financial challenges.

The City Commission agreed to help, approving the $600,000 subsidy in September. Under the new deal, the ferry will not be charged docking fees on the Miami Beach side at the public dock in Sunset Harbour.

Then-Commissioner David Richardson, who proposed the relaunch, said last year that city support would be crucial to the success of any water transit system.

“I believe these public transportation infrastructure [projects] can only operate with some sort of subsidy,” Richardson said at the May 2023 meeting, pointing to publicly funded ferry systems in other waterfront cities such as Sydney, Australia.

Poseidon has highlighted its financial hardships as a privately funded venture as evidence of the need for public support.

In November, the IRS filed a lien notice that said the company owed almost $114,000 in federal taxes. And in January, the company was sued in Miami-Dade County Court by the Community Fund of North Miami Dade, which claimed Poseidon owed more than $21,000 after failing to repay a loan. The case is pending.

“Regarding the loan, it is our intention to fulfill all of our financial obligations,” said Silvia, Poseidon’s CEO.

The company also faced a November 2022 federal lawsuit in which a yacht owner claimed a Poseidon Ferry captain “lost control” of the boat while traveling along the Miami River that July, hitting the docked yacht and causing over $44,000 in damage. The case was settled last November for an undisclosed amount.

Gultanoff, the local transit advocate, said he rode the Poseidon Ferry to downtown Miami multiple times when it launched in 2020. While it was a fun experience and a relatively cheap way to get on a boat, he said, the steep prices compared to other transit options make it hard to justify more than an occasional trip.

“People are price conscious,” he said. “One way to look at it is, it’s an inexpensive way to enjoy the water.”

Miami Beach officials will hold a virtual community meeting about the water taxi program on Tuesday, June 11, at 5:30 p.m. Members of the public can join via Zoom at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88410098941.