If you’ve lived in (or even visited) Vancouver, the experience may be all too familiar: you’re in a car, headed to a downtown destination. Traffic is moving along smoothly on the route marked out on your digital map. But suddenly, the dreaded red line appears on your route – a long traffic delay ahead.
City councillors and planners are highly aware of the tendency for traffic delays to occur on Vancouver streets. After all, Vancouver is a coastal city with a limited landmass and bridges that create traffic bottlenecks. They know that sitting in a car going nowhere reduces the quality of life for city residents, not to mention the environmental drawbacks and noise from so many vehicles.
Over the past several years, various organizations in metro Vancouver have created excellent plans that count on sustainable transportation systems, which reduce these traffic delays and allow people to get to their destinations efficiently. The Metro 2050 Regional Growth Strategy, the City of Vancouver’s Climate Emergency Action Plan, the Metro Vancouver Board Strategic Plan 2022-2026, the 2021 Clean Air Plan, Translink’s Transport 2050, the City of Vancouver’s Transportation 2040 Plan, and Invest Vancouver’s Annual Plan 2024 outline the necessity for sustainable urban areas with efficient and affordable transportation that runs on cleaner energy. These plans, created by the best and brightest in municipal planning, lay out the vision for a coastal city of the future where transportation systems are developed around the patterns of its residents, enabling efficient and ecologically sustainable movement around the region, whether by land, sea, or air.
All-electric passenger-only ferries are a key component of bringing these ambitious plans to fruition in Vancouver. Greenline’s proposed electric ferries connect smaller coastal communities with major transit hubs on Vancouver’s mainland, enabling smooth onward journeys to people’s final destinations with zero emissions. As envisioned, the affordable and efficient ferry service makes it easy to connect with ride hail services, car shares, public transit, and bike lanes. In this way, our highly motivated team can help organizations in the Vancouver region come closer to realizing their transportation goals over the next decade. All this without additional cost to the public.
With Greenline vessels in service, the region will also see additional job creation and economic benefits – making the venture a win for both sustainability and the economy in Vancouver.
In a city bounded by waterways, the deployment of all-electric passenger-only ferries is a logical step that will have a big impact on transportation sustainability and efficiency. Greenline is pleased to be working alongside multiple organizations to help fulfill strategic plans for the region and make Vancouver a global model of sustainable, people-focused transportation.
