Hoverlink Ontario Inc. announced Wednesday that it is in the final stages of approving a new service connecting Toronto’s Ontario Place with Port Weller, St. Catharines, and expects the eco-friendly and waterproof hovercraft course to be operational in the summer of 2023. The service promises a faster alternative to the hours-long car rides and seasonal train routes that connect the two regions. And Hoverlink suggests you can ride one of these ultra-quiet (advertised to be less noisy than a dishwasher) hovercraft sooner than expected. It would operate year-round with all-weather boats with climate-controlled cabins that would keep passengers comfortable in the cold winter and hot summer months as they zip above the surface of the lake on cushions of air. Each amphibious hovercraft holds up to 180 passengers and can make up to 48 lake crossings per day. This adds up to a maximum capacity of 8,640 passengers per hovercraft, per day, or more than three million passengers per year. The company already has approvals to land the hovercraft at both ports, saying it has worked with all levels of government and done more than a decade of due diligence before reaching this final stage of approvals. “December is months away, but today we’re officially announcing a gift to families across the Golden Horseshoe,” CFL legend and Hoverlink Board member Michael “Pinball” Clemons said in a press release, adding that the service is “changing the game. .” If it goes ahead as planned, the new service will not only provide a convenient service across the lake, but also promises environmental benefits by removing thousands of vehicles from the QEW each day. Although Hoverlink is touting the service as the first of its kind in North America, there have been previous attempts at (non-hovercraft) high-speed ferries on Lake Ontario, most notably the ill-fated attempt to connect Toronto and Rochester, New York with a catamaran ferry route . More recent efforts to introduce a ferry service to the Niagara Region may continue to move behind the scenes, such as a proposed passenger ferry connecting various GTA municipalities and another planned inter-lake ferry from a few years earlier. Previous photo by CNW Group/Hoverlink Ontario Inc.
