Residents and visitors could soon be riding the Brisbane River on battery-powered boats.
Brisbane City Council’s 2023-24 Budget includes funding for a special feasibility study into a brand-new, battery-powered vessel to be known as the EVCat.
Lord Mayor, Adrian Schrinner said he was committed to exploring a cleaner, greener, and more sustainable future for public transport in Brisbane.
“I’m committed to building a cleaner, greener, and more sustainable Brisbane and the EVCat is another demonstration of our team’s commitment to sustainability,” Cr Schrinner said.
“We already have electric cars and electric buses and soon we could have an electric ferry in the fleet.
“With almost 2.5 million trips taken on a CityCat or KittyCat a year, we need to start considering ways to make our fleet more sustainable in the future.
“If successful, the sky is the limit for electric-powered vessels which could one day mean Brisbane has a fully-electric river fleet.”
THE EVCat will be a 15m-long battery-powered catamaran-style vessel with rooftop solar panels. It will be operated by two crew and seat up to 58 passengers, with standing room for a further 22. Its primary purpose would be cross river services.
Council says a feasibility study will be conducted with locally-based operator River City Ferries and local ship builder, Aus Ships.
Cr Schrinner said the 2023-24 Brisbane Budget also included funding to introduce a brand-new specialised high-frequency bus route, in partnership with the State Government.
“We must deliver new transport options to cater for the population boom in Brisbane’s inner-north’s and for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games venues, including the future Athletes Village,” he said.
“Brisbane is Australia’s fastest growing capital city and it’s important that as our population grows our public transport network keeps pace.”
The Gold CityGlider will go from Northshore Hamilton to Woolloongabba via Bowen Hills and the new Waterfront Brisbane and Queen’s Wharf developments.
The new service would operate like the existing and very successful Blue and Maroon CityGliders, providing a high-frequency service – seven days a week and 24 hours on the weekend.
This financial year there have been more than 2.7 million trips taken on the Blue CityGlider and more than 1.2 million trips taken on the Maroon CityGlider.