Proposal would see ferry boats travel from Scarborough and Etobicoke

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Commuter ferry service linking the central water front with Scarborough and Etobicoke would be costly, slow and unreliable according to a report going to next week's meeting of the Toronto Transit Commission.

But TTC chair Adam Giambrone, who asked for the study last year, isn't ruling the possibility of the TTC taking to the lake for the long run.

"It seems like you'd want to exhaust any GO Transit upgrades before you would consider investing in ferries from a public policy point of view," said Giambrone. "But it's interesting to note that they compete."

According to the report, however, the competition between a hypothetical commuter ferry and existing GO Transit service along the lakeshore gives GO the edge.

According to the report by transit expert Richard Soberman, GO Rail trips would be significantly shorter than a typical ferry trip, and about the same amount of time as the equivalent TTC. If the TTC were to construct ferry terminals at Humber Bay in the west and Bluffers Park in the east, the trips to downtown would be 24 minutes from the west and 39 minutes from the east.

Factoring the time needed to reach those proposed terminals, GO would be 30 per cent and 50 per cent faster, respectively.

And it would cost.

Soberman estimates that reasonable service levels would require four vessels. A new 350-passenger capacity vessel could be purchased for $8 million. With ferry terminals coming in at about $6 million each, the whole operation would cost about $38 million. And operating costs would be in the order of $13 million a year.

If riders on the ferries paid a regular TTC cash fare, taxpayers would be subsidizing each ride to the tune of $11 from the west and $39 from the east.

The ferries would, on the other hand, provide direct routes to the downtown core from east and west.

But the TTC would also have to deal with community concerns about establishing new docks in the public parks, and operational problems running feeder buses.

And then there's the weather, which could lead to frequent service disruptions, particularly in the winter.

According to the report, "It is unlikely that a successful commuter ferry service could be implemented in Toronto at the present time."

Giambrone agreed with that. But he pointed out that as public transit expansion proceeds over the coming decades, the possibility of a ferry service could break the surface again.