The captain of the Lady Atlantic has been giving sightseeing tours on the Intracoastal Waterway in southern Palm Beach County for the past eight years.
Now, Joe Reardon, owner of Delray Yacht Cruises, wants to embark on another adventure – providing water taxi service along the Intracoastal between Delray Beach‘s bustling Atlantic Avenue and Boynton Beach‘s revived Ocean Avenue.
“One of the unique things about ferry transportation is there’s a romance to it,” said Reardon, who ran a ferry service in Massachusetts. “You just have to get people used to the idea of doing it.”
Transportation planners have long courted the idea of a making the Intracoastal a transportation artery with water taxis taking passengers to marinas, waterfront restaurants, retail shops and recreation spots.
A little of that has occurred in northern Palm Beach County, particularly around Riviera Beach. Now the idea is spreading to southern Palm Beach County.
“There’s more interest in them,” said Randy Whitfield, executive director of the Palm Beach Metropolitan Planning Organization, the county’s transportation planning agency. “A lot of cities are doing waterfront development.”
But in many cases countywide, these so-called water taxis are sightseeing operations like Reardon’s that hope to be the “yellow cab” of the Intracoastal but can’t quite get it off the ground. It’s a concept many like but has been slow to take hold.
Take Liquid Launch in Delray Beach. Owner Rick Vanneck started the water taxi service in 2006. But the service has been more of a charter, taking groups for a day on the water.
“I wanted to copy what they were doing in Fort Lauderdale,” Vanneck said. “I felt there could be a demand for it. I found a little boat and tried to make it work. It’s very tough.”
The Palm Beach MPO received a $1 million federal grant in 2004 to promote water taxi services along the Intracoastal. Initially planning to buy water buses and launch a public water taxi service, the agency instead gave cities and the county money to build and refurbish docks to be used exclusively for water taxis.
So far, three water-taxi docks have been built with five more under construction or in the planning stages. Private water taxi operators are expected to use the docks once they’re built.
But the docks that have been built are getting little use. West Palm Beach built water-taxi docks – one at Currie Park and another as part of the city’s new Waterfront Commons downtown – with $120,000 it received from the Palm Beach MPO. But no water taxis are using them.
One operator, Water Taxi of the Palm Beaches, once considered turning its sightseeing business in North Palm Beach into a water taxi operation, said Doug Walter, manager. But running a service between, say, Jupiter and West Palm Beach would have been a money loser with not enough customers or destinations in between.
Still, southern Palm Beach County has caught the water taxi bug.
“That’s just too cool, these boat rides,” said Lisa Bright, Boynton Beach Community Redevelopment Agency director.
The Boynton Beach CRA is redeveloping the Boynton Harbor Marina and recently received $37,000 from the Palm Beach MPO to build a slip for water taxi service. It’s the most southern location of the MPO-funded water taxi docks.
Bright said she believes the water taxi service would bring customers to a redeveloped waterfront with shopping and dining.
Once most of the construction is complete at the new Boynton marina, Reardon, of Delray Yacht Cruises, thinks he could do just that. He recently gave Boynton city leaders a presentation on a regularly scheduled service he wants to develop between Delray Beach and Boynton Beach.
He has a boat and has begun to figure out the logistics. The trip would take 20-25 minutes each way. He figures he can run it a few times a week during the winter.
But he sensed some hesitation from Boynton Beach leaders.
“I think you have to prove it’s going to work first, then they will jump on board,” he said.
Boca Raton leaders seemed open to the possibility of an entrepreneur developing a water taxi service as the city works on developing its waterfront.
The head of its Marine Advisory Board during a recent presentation suggested a service that serves Boca Raton parks and a few waterfront restaurants would enhance Boca’s waterway.
“There’s enough interest in the water and the waterfront and people who don’t have boats that would like to partake of that experience,” said Gene Folden, marine advisory board chairman.
A 2008 study of the Intracoastal in Palm Beach County by the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council said water taxis were important to regional transportation, especially during special events and weekend activities.
The study said water taxis could complement waterfront redevelopment and recommended a countywide water taxi service stretching from Jupiter to Boca Raton.
Some water taxi operators are skeptical of such a countywide service, pointing out issues such as slow wake zones, manatees and large stretches of the Intracoastal that have no destinations.
Still, captains such as Reardon hope demand for water taxis will catch on.
“Getting there is half the fun,” he said.
Angel Streeter can be reached at or 561-243-6537.
