City lights create demand for weekend ferry

More than 1100 responses have been received, 10 days into a survey seeking interest in weekend ferry sailings between Gulf Harbour and Auckland.

The vast majority (85.8 percent) of those who responded to the online survey want to use the ferry to head to the city’s restaurants and bars in the weekend and 87.4 percent say they would use the ferry to avoid traffic (72.6 percent would opt for a ferry to avoid drink-driving).

Most (more than 60 percent) will also use other public transport on their journey.

More than 70 percent say they would use a weekend ferry to go shopping in the city.

A total of 38.1 percent of respondents are occasional ferry users and 12.8 percent do not currently use the ferry at all, indicating that weekend ferries would attract new custom.

Just over 21 percent of respondents are commuters and only 1.7 percent are students.

The majority (47.6 percent) live in Gulf Harbour, with the numbers dropping sharply as you travel up the peninsula – 11 percent come from Manly and 9.8 percent from Stanmore Bay.

The survey was initiated on March 27 following an Off the Record in Hibiscus Matters’ March 1 paper about the demand for weekend ferries; this caused a stir on social media.

As a result, the Hibiscus & Bays Local Board requested the developers of Fairway Bay, Top Harbour, to conduct a survey, focused on weekend sailings.

Local board chair Julia Parfitt will present the findings at an upcoming meeting with Auckland Transport (AT), as evidence of the potential demand.

“AT needs to see some evidence of demand before they can build a business case around weekend sailings,” Mrs Parfitt says.

Until last year, Top Harbour subsidised the weekday ferry sailings and development consultant Michael Webb-Speight says the company is open to talking with AT about supporting weekend sailings in future.

However he says it is impossible to make a commitment until the company has those discussions and knows what any such financial contribution may look like.

The survey closes this week, on Wednesday, April 12.