MAYPORT, Fla. – For the first time in 30 years, the St. Johns River Ferry will get a companion. Thanks to a $15.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, a second ferry will join the Jean Ribault, connecting Mayport and Ft. George Island.
“A new ferry means a more reliable way to get to where you need to be,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in an interview with News4JAX.
The St. Johns River Ferry, which operates every half hour, connects the north and south ends of A1A. The mile-long ferry ride only takes five minutes, but when the ferry is closed for maintenance, the trip turns into at least a 30-minute detour by car.
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To address this, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) will use the federal grant to add a second ferry. JTA has to suspend service for several weeks annually while the Jean Ribault is out of service for maintenance and repairs.
“Part of why we have invested in this program as part of the Biden-Harris infrastructure package is to make sure people who count on ferries to get to where they’re going have the up-to-date infrastructure and the up-to-date ferry vessels that they should be able to count on,” Buttigieg said.
The new ferry will feature diesel-electric hybrid technology, aiming to provide both reliability and environmental benefits.
“People in Florida don’t need anyone to tell them how important and how challenging issues of air quality and climate have been,” Buttigieg explained. “Transportation is actually the biggest contributor of carbon pollution in the U.S. economy, but it doesn’t have to be, and we think that transportation should aspire to be the biggest part of the solution. So this hybrid diesel-electric technology, it can bring cost savings in terms of how to operate it, and then, very importantly, it can mean real benefit, including things like the rates of asthma in children that go down when you have cleaner-burning vessels.”
The second ferry is expected to improve service, reduce disruptions, and bring environmental and health benefits to the Jacksonville area.
The new ferry still needs to be built and is projected to be operational by fall 2028. Until then, the Jean Ribault will continue operating solo, with periodic maintenance closures. Closures for 2025 have yet to be announced.
This federal investment, part of the larger Biden-Harris infrastructure package, is designed to modernize transportation across the U.S., with Jacksonville now set to benefit from this long-overdue upgrade.