The captain counted two passengers on the 8 a.m. boat from Venetian Marina to Miami Beach one Wednesday in April. The 6 p.m. boat on the same route carried 47, in a vessel built for 55. The Miami Herald rode along that day. Capt. Carlos Dominguez told the paper that most riders are out-of-towners, that traffic picks up around 10 or 11 a.m., and that Friday evenings are the busiest time.
That one day captures how the free Miami Beach water taxi actually works. The Miami dock is Venetian Marina & Yacht Club, also called Sea Isle Marina, at 1635 N Bayshore Dr., near the Omni transit hub and a short trip from Edgewater. The boat runs on weekdays, during the day, and the people riding it are mostly visitors. If you live nearby, Sunset Harbour becomes a 20-minute crossing, and the schedule decides which kind of outing works.
A boat sized for commuters, carrying sightseers
The current service started on Jan. 20, 2026. Miami Beach pays about $1.2 million a year to run it and splits the cost with the Florida Department of Transportation, according to the Herald's launch-day report. Water Taxi of Miami Beach, LLC operates it. Miami Today describes the operator as the same team that runs the Fort Lauderdale Water Taxi.
Riders have shown up. Miami Today reported 73,254 riders from launch through May 1, 2026, or about 1,000 a day. On average, 8% of the people waiting at a dock were left behind because the boat was full. The city's previous try, the Poseidon Ferry, charged a fare and averaged 43 riders a day during one stretch in 2024, according to the Herald.
Mayor Steven Meiner made his pitch to residents in a March 31 email, which the Herald quoted:
"Please hop on board our water taxi. It's FREE, fun, and efficient!"
The ridership pattern matters as much as the totals. If most riders are visitors who start crossing in the late morning, the early boats leave the Miami dock nearly empty, and the crowded ones are the late-afternoon boats heading toward the Beach. An Edgewater resident with a morning reason to go to Sunset Harbour is traveling against the crowd.
The timetable, read as an itinerary
The City of Miami Beach water taxi page sets the schedule. Boats run Monday through Friday. From 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. there is a boat every hour, and from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. there is one every 30 minutes. The city lists no weekend service during the initial launch. The boats are about 40 feet long and the crossing takes 20 minutes. The boat also skips observed federal holidays unless the city says otherwise, so expect Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 26, to be a day off for the boat unless the city posts otherwise.
The last boat leaves Maurice Gibb Memorial Park at 7:30 p.m. and reaches the Miami dock at 7:50. Every Sunset Harbour plan from Edgewater works backward from that time. Here is how the published schedule lines up with three outings:
| Outing | Leave Venetian Marina | Arrive Sunset Harbour | Boats back to Miami |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lunch on 18th Street | 11:00 a.m. or 12:00 p.m. | 11:20 a.m. or 12:20 p.m. | 1:30, 2:30 or 3:30 p.m. |
| Afternoon at Maurice Gibb Memorial Park | Any hourly boat, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. | 1:20 to 3:20 p.m. | Every hour on the half hour, then every 30 minutes after 4:30 p.m. |
| Aperitivo on West Avenue | 4:30 p.m. | 4:50 p.m. | 6:30, 7:00 or 7:30 p.m. |
The aperitivo row fits the boat best. A Pasta Bar, at 1784 West Ave., opened Oct. 21, according to Miami New Times. The Herald lists its hours as 5 to 11 p.m. daily. It serves a Milanese-style aperitivo every day: Italian aperitifs, spritzes and wine with tramezzini and crocchette. The 4:30 p.m. boat lands you at Purdy Avenue a few minutes before the doors open. That leaves about two and a half hours before the last boat back.
A full dinner there needs another way home. The restaurant is the SoHo original's first location outside New York. It has a 17-seat chef's counter around a freestanding kitchen, pastas finished in a wok, and dishes from a wood-smoked grill that, the Herald reports, appear only on the Miami Beach menu. A meal like that runs well past 7:30, so the boat can take you there but a car has to bring you back.
Lunch is the simplest version. BeyBey, at 1330 18th St., came back in December 2025 after an 18-month pause to rebuild its kitchen. Miami New Times describes the new menu as charcoal cooking, Yucatán touches and Lebanese flavors. Take a late-morning boat over and an early-afternoon boat back, and the round trip involves no car at all.
What waits at the Purdy Avenue dock
The Miami Beach landing sits inside Maurice Gibb Memorial Park, at 18th Street and Purdy Avenue. The city lists the park's redesign as complete. It added a custom music-themed play structure, a dog park, fishing piers, a large bay overlook, pavilions for small gatherings, and a longer mangrove shoreline along a raised seawall. For a family in Edgewater, that makes the afternoon row in the table above a complete outing: one crossing, the playground, the overlook, and a boat back before dinner.
Getting around on the Beach side doesn't require a car either. The city says bikes and scooters can come aboard at the captain's discretion when there is room, and a Citi Bike station stands at the northwest corner of Purdy Avenue and 18th Street. The South Beach Trolley and Freebee also connect at the Miami Beach end. On the Miami side, the dock links to Miami-Dade Transit at the Omni station. The water taxi also appears as a travel option in Google Maps, so you can plan the whole trip there.
The neighborhood around the dock keeps adding places. The Infatuation's fall 2026 openings guide lists Honey Veil at 1800 Bay Rd., Suite 103, and Genghis Cohen at 1801 Purdy Ave. among its late-2026 Sunset Harbour openings. Both are within a few blocks of the boat.
Art Week puts a fair next to the Miami dock
For one week in December, Edgewater's end of the route becomes the destination. Art Miami and its sister fair CONTEXT return to One Herald Plaza, at NE 14th Street and Biscayne Bay, from Dec. 1 to 6. The fair sits between the Venetian and MacArthur causeways. Its Oct. 1 announcement describes the fair as "conveniently situated near this year's Water Taxi stop."
Public hours start Tuesday, Dec. 1, at 4 p.m. That night Art Miami closes at 8 and CONTEXT stays open until 9:30. From Wednesday through Saturday both fairs run from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and on Sunday, Dec. 6, they close at 6. Shepard Fairey receives this year's Art Miami Lifetime Visionary Award and plays a DJ set at CONTEXT's opening evening, 7:30 to 9 p.m.
Last year shows what Art Week can do to the boat schedule. In December 2025, before the year-round service launched, Miami Beach paid for up to seven vessels running every 10 to 15 minutes between the same two docks. They ran from 10 a.m. to midnight Dec. 1 through 6 and until 10 p.m. on Dec. 7, Miami Today reported. The regular timetable on the city's water taxi page still ends at 7:30 p.m., so check it before planning a late crossing during fair week. Art Basel Miami Beach is open to the public Dec. 4 to 6 at the Miami Beach Convention Center, so the boat links the two biggest fair sites of the week.
There's also an Art Week stop inside Edgewater. AIRE, the nightclub that opened Sept. 24 at 111 NE 20th St., in the former Boho Miami space, lists an HVMZA Miami Art Week night for Friday, Dec. 4, on its calendar.
Where the schedule could go next
Commissioners have already discussed adding service. In May, Miami Beach began studying weekend service, extra boats at rush hour and for events, and new routes. The routes under study include a South of Fifth line from the Miami Beach Marina to Bayside Marketplace, a north-south run from Maurice Gibb Memorial Park to Mount Sinai Medical Center, and a North Beach route, according to Miami Today. A Sept. 23 memo to the city's Finance and Economic Resiliency Committee put extra water taxi service for the 2027 Boat Show up for discussion.
Until any of that is adopted, the schedule is the one in the table above: weekdays, the first boat from Venetian Marina at 7 a.m. and the last boat from Purdy Avenue at 7:30 p.m. Lunch at BeyBey, an afternoon at the park, or spritzes on West Avenue all fit inside those hours.
Living close to the water and the transit that runs on it is part of what makes this side of the bay special. If you'd like to talk through how Edgewater's connections to the Beach, the fairs and the rest of the city fit your plans, Jorge Hidalgo is glad to share what he knows. Schedule a Confidential Consultation.
