Greenline to the heart of Vancouver: What’s the best landing site?

Greenline is built around the core philosophy that people in coastal communities should be able to move from the center of one community to another, without having to make time- consuming detours through faraway terminals. That way, a greater number of people can have a seamless journey and reach their final destination – whether it’s a medical office, a stadium sports game, or another popular venue – through walking or public transit.

As our team has been working for the past two years to gather all the pieces for our new passenger-only ferry service, one of our most complex challenges has been to find a suitable place to land in downtown Vancouver. As we’ve learned, Vancouver’s waterfront is a very busy place. Many privately-owned sections of the waterfront are unavailable or are fraught with access challenges. Some other sites are handling their full capacity and aren’t able to accommodate further passenger throughput.

But after exhaustive investigation and more than a dozen meetings around the city, our team has set its sights on an excellent Vancouver landing site: the dock facility at Harbour Green Park.

We’re excited about this landing site because it’s a beautiful, accessible site that would need minimal modifications to accommodate the Greenline boats. Greenline and its partners would pay for these changes so there’s no cost – only benefits – to individual city residents.

• The Harbour Green Park would remain unchanged, and the dock would stay open and accessible to the public.

• A charging facility for our boats, similar to an electric vehicle charging port, would be installed on a new dock segment. BC Hydro and Greenline have been working together since September on an innovative charging solution for marine vessels.

• Greenline boats are compact and quiet, so the view and the soundscape will be largely unaffected.

• The Greenline boats would arrive seven times per day, with four journeys from Gibsons and three from Bowen Island.

• Each Greenline boat would offload about the same number of passengers as a city bus, and most of these passengers would walk on paved pathways toward the downtown and transit.

Greenline has also been engaging with the local First Nations throughout the planning and is committed to understanding their interests and mitigating their concerns. Greenline is also working with mayors, councillors, and commissioners in all three communities –Vancouver, Gibsons, and Bowen Island – along with provincial and federal representative to work together on this important site. At a media event on the topic held Feb 7th, 2025, Vancouver City Councillor Rebecca Bligh kicked off the press conference by talking about how a passenger-only ferry service aligns to the city's transportation plans and could help Vancouver achieve its climate goals. Mayor Andrew Leonard of Bowen Island and Mayor Silas White of Gibsons emphasized how new ferry options will create Green Shipping Corridors to connect their communities to the mainland in new ways. MP Patrick Weiler spoke of the environmental benefits of an all-electric ferry service on Southern Resident killer whales. Park Chair Laura Christensen, Park Board Commissioner Brennan Bastyovanszky, and MLA Jeremy Valeriote were also in attendance to show support.

The announcement was covered by all the major Vancouver media outlets, in print articles or TV slots: CBC, CTV, Daily Hive, Vancouver Sun, Business in Vancouver, Global, CityNews, Coast Reporter, and others. And as some of the headlines emphasized, the event marks the first time that representatives from all three levels of government have come together to show their public support for Greenline's endeavour.

Our team couldn't be more excited to see this tangible outcome of all our work over the past two years, involving countless conversations with elected officials and community members to communicate our vision and our step-by-step plan for more connected coastal communities. The job hasn't always been easy, but we've kept moving forward. As Callum said in his interview with Gloria Macarenko of CBC Radio: "This is system change, so it's hard. We don't have those lines drawn on our maps yet. But the type of support that we saw this morning is really heartening."

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