Some CityCat ferry services will remain offline for months, including the UQ terminal which was smashed by the February flood event.

Eight CityCats were damaged and one even sank entirely.

Chandler Ward councillor and civic cabinet chair for transport, Ryan Murphy, says ferry services will be returning to New Farm and Hawthorne in the second phase of the network’s staged return.

“Today we have had the next phase in restoring service to the river, so we now have a triangle service operating in a 15 minute frequency running between new Farm Park to Hawthorne, to Teneriffe,” Cr Murphy told Scott Emerson.

He says the next phase is connecting the services back into Howard Smith Wharves, Mowbray Park, Riverside and South Bank, towards the end of May.

They’re hopeful the majority of terminals will be back on by the end of May.

“But we have seen some significant additional damage at UQ terminal, the Regatta terminal and the North Quay terminal, so we are expecting they might take up to 6 months to get back up and running.

“Ironically the terminals haven’t suffered that bad damage, but it’s the land side infrastructure, the concrete abutments where the terminal joins the shore, that have suffered some undermining, they will need to be restored and repaired.”

The CityCat terminal at UQ – the river has broken its banks at the campus and the flood-proof terminal – built after the 2011 floods to allow its ramp to swing away – appears to have failed. Keep listening to @NewsTalk4BC rolling coverage of the flood emergency. pic.twitter.com/euU7TbZZPV

— Scott Emerson (@scottemerson) February 26, 2022

Cr Murphy says there is significant lead time on trades at the moment, with the amount of infrastructure upgrades and construction going on.

He says no terminals were lost in this flood event, unlike in 2011.

“I think that is a good outcome for ratepayers … a proven Brisbane designed that was a world-first.”

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