Hoverlink - Toronto to Niagara Hovercraft service starting 2023

[Jonny5]

Yes, someone is trying to do this again, this time with hovercraft.

Hovercraft service plans to start Toronto to Niagara run next summer

Hoverlink Ontario says the trip from Ontario Place to St. Catharines should take about 30 minutes, for about $60 for a return ticket.

www.thestar.com

To summarise the article:
They plan to have two hovercraft, each of which can carry about 180.
Travel time is about 30 minutes.
Tickets expected to be about $60 round trip. The price includes a ride on a shuttle to/from the Falls and the arrival point on the Niagara side (to be determined).
The Toronto departure point is in the vicinity of Ontario Place, and it will also have a shuttle to/from Union Station (no word how that would work if Lake Shore is closed).
It would operate 365 days a year as it can go over ice.

Ignoring the infamous Rochester ferry, I recall Toronto to Niagara specifically being mentioned so many times as "coming soon" and for many reasons it doesn't happen. But here's another try!

 

[allengeorge]

Where did you find details about the shuttles? It’s not in the linked article.

 

[afransen]

Would door to door not take a lot longer than 30 min then?

 

[crs1026]

Would door to door not take a lot longer than 30 min then?

At first glance, all of the numbers (price, ridership, frequency of service) sound a tad fantastic.

Without doing any precise calculations, the inference is that the open-water speed must be very high. I’m dubious that is acceptable or even attainable in many weather and wave conditions.

And, just wait til their service is diverted to Port Credit because the Union shuttle buses are stuck in traffic.

- Paul

 

[LNahid2000]

Would door to door not take a lot longer than 30 min then?

An hour at least but probably longer since anywhere on the shore is at least a 25 minute drive from the Falls.

 

[smably]

I would love to give this a try next year, but I'm a bit skeptical that they'll be able to get it off the ground.

 

[Jonny5]

Where did you find details about the shuttles? It’s not in the linked article.

That's a good question. It appears the Star nuked that whole section.

Clearly the press release article has been updated (it says that at the top now). It now also says the Niagara terminal will be Port Weller, and when I read it this morning it said it was not determined, but to be somewhere "near Port Dalhousie".
So they wiped out a whole section and rewrote the rest of it.

 

[cereal]

Two things that jump at me immediately...

1. Noise - there is no way this is as 'quiet as dishwasher' on approach.
   • Here are two clips from an 80 passenger version running service in the UK. They are proposing a 180 passenger version for Toronto service, likely almost twice the size.
2. Where exactly is this landing at Ontario Place?
   • It says at Ontario Place 'near billy bishop'
   • The port facility would have to be pretty substantial to handle a vehicle this size + 180 passenger boarding.
   • It can't be on the outer southern edge of Ontario place proper, unless it ran shuttle services out to the parking lot along lakeshore.
   • How much waterfront access are we going to lose to this?

 

[lenaitch]

Well, if they can make a go of it, it will be a first since it sounds like all other commercial hovercraft services around the world have folded. A 180-passenger craft would be a very large (and expensive) machine, and likely very noisy which, it seems, is always one of the problems in acceptance.

What happened to passenger hovercraft?

It's 60 years since inventor Christopher Cockerell demonstrated the principles of the hovercraft. But it never caught on widely as passenger transport. Why?

www.bbc.com

 

[Admiral Beez]

Ignoring the infamous Rochester ferry, I recall Toronto to Niagara specifically being mentioned so many times as "coming soon" and for many reasons it doesn't happen. But here's another try!

The Rochester ferry was a good idea, but killed off by government incompetence and disinterest on municipal, provincial/state and federal levels. It also didn't help that the business plan and execution was poor.

HSC Virgen de Coromoto - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Jonny5]

Two things that jump at me immediately...

1. Noise - there is no way this is as 'quiet as dishwasher' on approach

Ya when I read that my mind pictured the Juice Loosener from the Simpsons

 

[innsertnamehere]

It's about 50km across the lake, it would have to average about 100km/h to make that trip in 30 minutes. Good luck!

 

[cereal]

Well, if they can make a go of it, it will be a first since it sounds like all other commercial hovercraft services around the world have folded. A 180-passenger craft would be a very large (and expensive) machine, and likely very noisy which, it seems, is always one of the problems in acceptance.

What happened to passenger hovercraft?

It's 60 years since inventor Christopher Cockerell demonstrated the principles of the hovercraft. But it never caught on widely as passenger transport. Why?

www.bbc.com

love this quote from the article...

"The problem militating against expansion has always been the noise for residents, who have to hear the hovercraft all day, 365 days a year," says Warwick Jacobs, who runs the Hovercraft Museum, at Gosport, Hampshire. "The sound can travel quite a way, depending on the wind speed. We could have had hovercraft running on the Thames, for instance, but they'd have been too noisy."

 

[Gino29]

Yes, someone is trying to do this again, this time with hovercraft.

Hovercraft service plans to start Toronto to Niagara run next summer

Hoverlink Ontario says the trip from Ontario Place to St. Catharines should take about 30 minutes, for about $60 for a return ticket.

www.thestar.com

To summarise the article:
They plan to have two hovercraft, each of which can carry about 180.
Travel time is about 30 minutes.
Tickets expected to be about $60 round trip. The price includes a ride on a shuttle to/from the Falls and the arrival point on the Niagara side (to be determined).
The Toronto departure point is in the vicinity of Ontario Place, and it will also have a shuttle to/from Union Station (no word how that would work if Lake Shore is closed).
It would operate 365 days a year as it can go over ice.

Ignoring the infamous Rochester ferry, I recall Toronto to Niagara specifically being mentioned so many times as "coming soon" and for many reasons it doesn't happen. But here's another try!

i had assumed it was April 1st when I read the article earlier this morning....but no, somehow it is September 14th.

Is there a way to validate they actually have received approvals from all three levels of government as stated in the article / press release? Or that they already have approvals in place to land its hovercraft at Ontario Place as they state in their press release? And why is Pinball Clemons involved in this?? Make it make sense...

 

[lenaitch]

The Rochester ferry was a good idea, but killed off by government incompetence and disinterest on municipal, provincial/state and federal levels. It also didn't help that the business plan and execution was poor.

HSC Virgen de Coromoto - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So, to sum up, no level of government was willing to offer a public teat, the proponents had a bad business plan that they executed poorly, and the thing was a money loser, but other than that it was a good idea?