The City of New Westminster believes there’s “strong support” from the community to launch a full-scale pilot project for the Q2Q ferry in 2018.
When the city had to put plans to build a pedestrian crossing between Queensborough and the Quay on hold because of cost concerns, it decided to offer a limited ferry service between the two neighbourhoods for two months in the summer of 2017. Based on strong support for the service from passengers, city council has directed staff to report back with options, including cost estimates, for a pilot ferry service to operate from spring to fall 2018.
“I don’t think there was any major surprises, particularly for anyone that was out riding the service this summer, that it was extremely well used. I think the numbers certainly back that up,” Mayor Jonathan Cote said. “The pilot demonstration project was a success, and I think exceeded our expectations in terms of what we expected could be accomplished from the ridership numbers.”
Cote said the small-scale project demonstrated that a ferry service would be in demand as a recreational, weekend service in good weather, but the city would need to test whether that demand would continue when the weather isn’t quite as nice or if people would use this service as part of their commutes to work. A 40-passenger ferry shuttled people back and forth between the two neighbourhoods on weekends and holiday Mondays in August and September
“There’s no doubt a little bit more tinkering and a little bit more testing is going to be needed to fully understand how best this service could be expanded into the future,” he said. “One thing that has become clear for the community, particularly on the Queensborough side, is there is now an expectation of this connection. I think that’s a good thing because we have demonstrated there has been a longstanding demand and need for us to be able to connect those two areas. This was certainly one mechanism for us to be able to do that.”
Coun. Patrick Johnstone said the demonstration project showed the need for a connection between the two neighbourhoods.
“I am not sure we demonstrate the need for a ferry, as much as we demonstrated the need for a connection,” he said. “I know that in my mind a bridge is still a better connection than a ferry, just for a bunch of reasons. I recognize we are not in a situation right now where that’s economically feasible for a city. I think it’s something we have to continue to have in our mind as an eventual long-term solution.”
A staff report states the short demonstration period has made the city aware of some items that will need to be considered if a full-scale pilot project is done in 2018, including accessibility, dock facilities downtown and at Port Royal, weather protection and waiting areas. The report also states that a dedicated project manager is needed to oversee all aspects of the pilot project including planning, operations, contract administration, liaising with technical and contract staff, monitoring and evaluations, marketing and communications.
A staff report states that, if the city wants to consider a full-scale pilot project in 2018, it should require an additional investment to enable the service to be more inclusive and a dedicated project manager would be required to ensure the pilot project can be implemented without compromising the ability of staff to work on the city’s other priority initiatives.
Cote believes the city needs a project manager to lead a pilot project, as a number of issues and obstacles to operating the service have been identified.
“One of the most challenging is accessibility, and, I think from the get-go, we acknowledged the shortcomings in the demonstration project, but we made a commitment that we were going to continue to do better regarding that,” he said. “The expectation is that even next year that accessibility is improved from our original year.”
