CityCat terminals get back on deck

BRISBANE'S flood recovery has inched further along with the reopening of all but one of the city's CityCat terminals.

BRISBANE'S flood recovery has inched further along with the reopening of all but one of the city's CityCat terminals.

From today the West End terminal will be the only CityCat stop still closed.

It has been slightly more than three months since the Brisbane River reached its damaging peak and tore several terminals from their moorings in January.

Many parts of the city have still not recovered.

The West End terminal is due to reopen in July. The River Plaza terminal, from where the older-style ferry ran, will remain closed until further notice.

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said council had installed temporary terminals at six stops North Quay, QUT, Holman Street, Sydney Street, St Lucia and Regatta at a cost of about $1 million each.

"CityCats are an icon of this city. They are not only a great transporter of people, they are also a part of the tourism and character and makeup of Brisbane," Cr Quirk said.

"This is a great milestone to be able to get these six terminals back up and operating in full service."

Permanent facilities for the six terminals, however, are at least 18 months away.

"What we have to do now is look at a full rebuild and that will be at a cost of around $5 million to $7 million per terminal and we will be doing that over a period of time," Cr Quirk said. "The one terminal that we are working on immediately in terms of a fast track is West End.

"It will be a dual berth facility."

The total cost of rebuilding the flood-damaged CityCat and ferry network is expected to come in at about $70 million.

TransdevTSL runs the CityCat and ferry network and operations manager Brett Smith said he hoped the full service would see passengers return in droves.

"As soon as we reopened we had a gradual build-up over the first few weeks but certainly we are seeing the numbers building right up now, back to where we would expect with the terminals closed," Mr Smith said.

"Of course with the rest of the terminals reopening we are confident those numbers will return to normal."

Two new morning express services from the Riverside and South Bank stops to the University of Queensland will also begin today.