As The Islander reported, on September 2, a group of passengers boarded the Manatee Belle at the Bradenton Riverwalk Pier for what the county was calling a demonstration run. They settled in for lunch on board. A bottlenose dolphin leaped from the wake somewhere along the Manatee River. Forty five minutes later the boat reached the Historic Bridge Street Pier, where anyone continuing on transferred to a smaller pontoon boat for a twenty minute hop to a new landing spot: the Coquina Bayside South Boat Ramp, directly across the street from Coquina Beach.
That transfer is the whole story. Bradenton Beach has had ferry service since January 2024, but until this month it ran one route between two stops. Now it runs two routes and three stops, and the second route is short enough to use on its own, without ever touching downtown Bradenton.
A Second Route With Its Own Schedule
The original Gulf Islands Ferry connected the Bradenton Riverwalk to the Historic Bridge Street Pier, a fifty minute trip that mostly served people coming from the mainland side. The Coquina addition works differently. It's a standalone twenty minute pontoon shuttle between the pier at 200 Bridge Street and the south boat ramp at Coquina Beach, running Wednesday through Sunday with four departures each direction: 11 a.m., noon, 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. from Bridge Street, with return trips at 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.
A round trip on that leg alone runs $9 for adults and $7 for seniors, military and children, according to county officials. You don't need to have come from Bradenton to use it. If you're already on Bridge Street, at the Anna Maria Oyster Bar or one of the shops nearby, you can walk onto the dock and be at Coquina twenty minutes later without getting in a car at all.
An ADA-compliant ramp was installed at the Coquina landing to make that transfer usable for everyone getting on and off, a detail that matters more on a boat ramp than it sounds like it should.
Why This Beat the Bridge
Coquina Beach sits at the south end of Anna Maria Island, which means reaching it from Bridge Street by car means finding parking in one of the county's busiest beach lots, a task that gets harder by the hour once season traffic picks up. Elliott Falcione, executive director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau and the ferry's most consistent advocate since before it launched, put the reasoning plainly: Coquina is the beach most residents already choose, so a water route to it removes a specific, recurring driving trip rather than a hypothetical one.
The county's own numbers back that logic up. More than 55,000 passengers used the ferry across all of 2025, a run that county officials say eliminated roughly 23,000 vehicle trips. Through August of this year, ridership had already passed 45,000, with four months of the fall and winter season still ahead.
Nicholas Francis, the ferry's lead captain, said he'd like to see the network keep growing, with stops eventually at the Anna Maria City Pier and in Cortez and Palmetto. For now, the three-stop version that started September 2 is what exists, and it already changes the calculation for anyone who lives close enough to Bridge Street to walk to the dock.
Bridge Street Is Busy for a Second Reason
The pier isn't the only thing on Bridge Street getting attention this season. Area merchants have started branding the commercial stretch as AMI South End, a name meant to give the district its own identity apart from the rest of Anna Maria Island. The ferry's new stop lands in the middle of that push, giving the street another reason for people to arrive on foot rather than by car.
A few hundred feet from the same pier, the nearly three acre Pines Trailer Park property has been sitting closed since Hurricane Helene's storm surge flooded its 86 mobile homes in September 2024. Pines Park Investors LLC presented a conceptual redevelopment plan to the city commission on August 6, calling for roughly 200 hotel rooms, 13 condominiums, about 30,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space and 351 parking spaces spread across four properties running from the bayfront to the roundabout at Gulf Drive.
Nothing has been approved. The commission took no action after the presentation, and Commissioner Debbie Scaccianoce said the scale as drawn made the rest of Bridge Street look like an afterthought. John Horne, who owns the Anna Maria Oyster Bar next door on the city-owned pier, took a more measured view when he weighed in later that month, saying the property has been home to a mobile home community since the mid-1930s and that whatever comes next, the bayfront parcel deserves something built with care.
Whatever shape that project eventually takes, the ferry stop landed on a stretch of Bridge Street that was already mid conversation about what it wants to become.
What Changes on an Actual Saturday
None of this requires a decision from anyone. The Coquina ferry runs on its own schedule regardless of how the Pines proposal shakes out, and a resident who wants to use it this weekend can buy a ticket at gulfislandsferry.com and be on the sand at Coquina twenty minutes after leaving Bridge Street. The choice that changes is a small one: whether the drive to the south end of the island is still the default, or whether the dock a few blocks from home is now just as fast.
If you're watching how Bridge Street keeps shifting this season, from a third ferry stop to the debate over the old Pines property, Renne' Rupp has been following each piece of it up close and is glad to talk through what it means for the stretch of Bradenton Beach you already call home.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
