San Francisco Water Taxis Approved: Port Commission OKs Bay Service (PHOTOS)

After years of negotiations, the San Francisco Port Commission finally approved water taxi service in the bay on Tuesday, meaning you'll be able to hail a ride to Sausalito, Tiburon, Napa or McCovey Cove whenever you please.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, details are still pending negotiations, but the bay will soon be home to both on-demand individual boat taxis and hop-on-hop-off services.

The hop-on-hop-off service will be managed by San Francisco Water Taxi and will be similar to the city's tour buses. The on-demand taxis will function like a regular cabs via a mobile app, and will be run by Tideline Marine Group.

"We'll be like the Uber cab of the bay," said Tideline Marine Group CEO Taylor Lewis to The Huffington Post. "You'll be able to see where are boats are on your phone, hail us, and we'll send you pickup information via text."

While pricing will likely be a bit more expensive than a land-based taxi, Lewis says that keeping a reasonable cost structure is a priority. And with 12-passenger boats, riders can ease fares by sharing rides with other travelers. Tideline Marine Group has already secured a 24-hour-a-day contract with Sam's Anchor Cafe, a popular Tiburon destination from which no one should drive home.

"The taxi service will really help animate and invigorate the waterfront," said Alicia Esterkamp Allbin of San Francisco Waterfront Partners. Allbin's company won the historic rehabilitation rights of Piers 1.5, 3 and 5 back in 2007, and built the city's first water taxi landing in the improvements.

"We believed that if we built it, they would come. And now we're finally seeing it come to fruition," said Allbin. "We haven't been utilizing the bay like we should be, but projects like these are doing just that."

Check out some of the destinations you'll soon be able to visit in our slideshow below: