Hoverlink - Toronto to Niagara Hovercraft service starting 2023

[wopchop]

Ferries typically cruise around 30 kph, and the distance from Toronto harbourfront to St Catharines is about 50 km. That leads to a travel time of 1:40 minimum. Frankly, rail service seems like a better bet. You can move more people, in more comfort faster.

There are ferries that go faster than that. For example, the Lake Express across Lake Michigan crosses 130km in 2.5 hrs.
The newer Vancouver (Horseshoe Bay) to Nanaimo high speed ferry will make the 55 km crossing in 70 minutes.

 

[afransen]

the idea is to use hovercraft, which move much quicker than a typical ferry like what goes to the Toronto Islands.

Whether that happens... I don't give it high hopes.

I know that, I thought someone was floating the idea of using a conventional ferry. I agree that the idea likely doesn't hold water (har har).

 

[Allandale25]

From Matt Elliot's City Hall Watcher newsletter:

• The hovercraft dream still has some air in it. Hoverlink Ontario, a company seeking to offer hovercraft transit service on Lake Ontario, connecting Toronto with other GTA municipalities, has reemerged on the lobbyist registry. The company, which last made a Lobbyist Watch appearance in March 2023, is now repped by Broad View Advisory’s Marsha Seca. No communications yet.

 

[Jonny5]

From Matt Elliot's City Hall Watcher newsletter:
The hovercraft dream still has some air in it. Hoverlink Ontario, a company seeking to offer hovercraft transit service on Lake Ontario, connecting Toronto with other GTA municipalities, has reemerged on the lobbyist registry. The company, which last made a Lobbyist Watch appearance in March 2023, is now repped by Broad View Advisory’s Marsha Seca. No communications yet.

How silly. If there was money there to be made, someone would have made it by now. The world is awash in funds to dump on private equity infrastructure schemes like this and if they can't even get a cent of all that money being thrown at anything then it has no valid business plan.
So it's really going to be about getting government subsidies to build it and hope that once it's there it eventually becomes either sustainably profitable, or "too popular to fail" (hence more subsidies or government takeover).

 

[rdaner]

So where are they docking on the Toronto end?

North America's first hovercraft rapid transit system could arrive in Ontario next year

A long-proposed hovercraft route connecting Toronto with Niagara Region appears to still have some life, with the first high-speed vessels now expe...

www.blogto.com

 

[Allandale25]

^ Article above notes some information sessions coming up:

https://hoverlinkontario.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Hoverlink-Ontario-Inc-Toronto-Public-Information-Sessions-Notice.pdf

 

[rdaner]

So I have read/heard that there is an idea to have a ferry dock somewhere at Ontario Place. There is also new emphasis on the Island Airport being a transport hub.

 

[ash_iwn95]

Stumbled across this thread randomly, this is hilariously ambitious and awesome

 

[DSC]

Stumbled across this thread randomly, this is hilariously ambitious and awesome

and unlikely ever to happen. (Though I like the idea, in theory!)

 

[cereal]

They keep claiming it will be a 30min ride... but it's ~45km journey point to point. How is that even possible? wouldn't that require at least an average speed around 90km/h and that's without even accounting for any arrival/departure speed limitations. Are they lying? or just dumb?

Also, a 180 passenger ferry with frequent daily service would need a fairly substantial passenger terminal, something with transportation links. I can't think of a single location along the Ontario Place waterfront where that could exist within the current Spa redevelopment plans. I suspect Hoverlink has some deep hooks into Doug Ford and they are going to try to steal a big chunk of Trillium Park for the terminal (which would be so awful)

 

[SubHuman]

... Aside from commercial viability I suspect noise is an even bigger problem than speed if they have to enter the harbour, but Ontario Place would probably accommodate it alright, as would closure of runway 06/24 and creation of a ramp and infield terminal at the west end of it...

An 11 pm curfew, like at the island airport, would likely be another problem limiting its professed usefulness.
For example, people attending a show at one of the Fallsview theatres wouldn't be starting to exit the venue until about 10 pm or later, so there would be no chance of them making it all the way back to Toronto before 11 pm.

 

[rdaner]

^All good points and again I will state nothing has been proposed. But a terminal somewhere along there with proximity to Exhibition Station and an airport does make sense.

 

[Jonny5]

They keep claiming it will be a 30min ride... but it's ~45km journey point to point. How is that even possible? wouldn't that require at least an average speed around 90km/h and that's without even accounting for any arrival/departure speed limitations. Are they lying? or just dumb?

It's even "under 30 minutes" in that press release. They are definitely marketing the highest possible dock-to-dock time at top listed operating speed in optimum conditions, which will probably rarely be possible or even desirable for them to use. I bet top possible speed is not efficient and won't ever be used.

 

[lenaitch]

 

[EnviroTO]

The published speed of the BHT Hovercraft is 45 knots (83km/h), so the 50km route would take about 36min, but then you aren't at Niagara Falls yet, nor downtown St Catharines, so there would be time on top of that to get anywhere. Early arrival time plus trip time plus transfer time plus ground transportation time.... it will not be a huge time savings over what would be possible if the railway tracks were upgraded to allow 120km/h.