The Chicago Water Taxi’s bright yellow boats will return to the city’s waterways every day of the week this summer, a vote of confidence in downtown Chicago’s ability to draw office workers and tourists.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the yellow water taxi service, once a harbinger of summer to the city’s downtown commuters, has been either suspended, run only on weekends or run on a limited schedule. Parent company Wendella Tours and Cruises has grappled with post-pandemic dynamics like lingering labor challenges and the return of tourists in force to downtown, but not office commuters.

Beginning Saturday, the taxi service will once again run every day of the week for the first time since 2019. The boats will, for now, make only three stops, focusing on major commuter train stations, Streeterville and Chinatown, with no scheduled service to stops that existed before the pandemic at Chicago Avenue and Goose Island, taxi executive Andrew Sargis said.

His aim is to serve both commuters and tourists this summer, after previous years of catering to tourists and struggling with low numbers of office commuters. Sargis hopes the return to daily schedules will further boost service, and in turn encourage more commuters to go into their offices, he said. Wendella is also looking at major events this summer that have the potential to boost ridership, like the return of the NASCAR Chicago Street Race and the Democratic National Convention.

The move is “a significant milestone in the industry’s journey toward revitalization and reconnection post-COVID,” the company said in a statement.

In early March, Chicago-area office occupancy was about 56% of pre-pandemic levels, according to data from Kastle Systems, which measures employee swipes into the buildings and businesses where the security company is present. That was above the average of 10 large metro areas — 51% in mid-March — as schools began to let out for spring break in some cities.

Metra ridership, one sign of commuting patterns from the suburbs into the city, also affects the water taxi, which connects two Metra hubs to other parts of downtown. In 2023, average weekday Metra ridership was 51% of 2019 levels, and about 44% above 2022 levels, according to Metra data.

Tourism, meanwhile, has by many measures come back strong, with demand for hotel rooms last year reaching nearly 91% of 2019, according to Choose Chicago.

“We had a good amount of commuters, and on the weekend we had a good amount of tourists,” Sargis said. “Enough that it signaled to us that the market for ferry transportation had kind of recovered.”

In addition to the yellow Chicago Water Taxi, another company, Shoreline Sightseeing, also provides water taxi service on two routes that serve tourism-friendly sites like Navy Pier and the Museum Campus as well as Willis Tower. Shoreline planned to operate daily last summer.

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