Roelof-Jan Steenstra arrived in Toronto about three years ago to run the port of the city, and almost immediately he saw something strange.
The traffic everywhere was terrible, then he would look at the lake and it was more or less empty. Almost no one lived by boat, apart from the ferries that people took back and forth from the islands. It did not make him logical that Toronto is directly on the water, but hardly used it.
“Where we build new roads? There is not much space,” said Steenstra, CEO of Ports Toronto, last month in an afternoon in his office. “This is an untouched source.”
From his window at the Havens Toronto headquarters on Queens Quay, he can look forward to Lake Ontario and imagine what it looks like in the future when things go on his way.
The port, he says, could become one of the greatest allies for every frustrated motorist in the city. He wants more shipping traffic to enter the port to remove more tractor trailers from the road. And he sees a kind of transit of the lake, a go -boat or a system of water taxis, sea buses, ferries and hovercraft that bring people in and out of the city center of Etobicoke, Scarborough and the suburbs, such as Mississauga, Oakville and Burlington in the East.
“What do you see in Vancouver? Transport about the harbor. Not because you have people who just want to visit. You have people home traffic,” he said. “It’s not rocket science, right? It is really just for us. We just have to use it.”
This is not the first time that someone has cooked an idea to send people along the waterfront. City leaders have dreamed for generations Different types of water dancing systems such as a way to unclog roads and to relieve the burden on trains and subways. The TTC studied the concept about 15 years ago. Former mayor of Toronto, John Tory, promised to look at it during his 2014 campaign.
Every time it was finally rejected as far -fetched and expensive. But more than ten years later, the congestion crisis of the city is only deteriorated-and it is expected that they will experience even more problems as Back-to-Office Mandates on Bay Street come into force this month, so that more and more people went to the city center of the city center.
A group of city leaders, including Steenstra, has decided that it is time to try something far -fetched.
“Where we build new roads? There is not much space,” says Roelof-Jan Steenstra, CEO of Ports Toronto. “This is an untouched source.”
Lance McMillan/Toronto -star
Giles Gherson, the head of the Toronto Region Board of Trade, said that the city currently has no choice but to try anything – everything -.
“There is literally no marine traffic. And the roads are stuck,” said Gherson, editor -in -chief of the star in the mid -1920s.
“The far -fetched thing is that we have not done it. That is what is far -fetched. It is far -fetched that we have not used this valuable waterway that we have at our front door.”
Waterfront Toronto launched a study in 2023 on the feasibility of flow water taxis or larger sea buses in the port. The study is expected to be released at the end of this year, but on the Water Toronto and other groups -oriented groups, including Ports Toronto, are already looking at starting a pilot project in next summer.
The pilot starts small. The goal is to build slow momentum behind the idea of ​​traveling through water through the city, instead of trying to launch an entire system at the same time.
The pilot, who is expected to be in use by the time the FIFA World Cup starts in Toronto in June, will start as a seasonal service using water taxis that move people across the port, before graduating on Zee buses, who can transport 50 to 100 passengers. From now on, water taxis and ferries only focus on moving people between the islands and the center back and forth. But the pilot will try to move them laterally across the harbor.
The locations were not completed, but the service would probably stop around the base of Bathurst Street, as well as Harbourfront Center in the city center, and in the east, in the new Biidaasy park near Cherry Street in the Havenlanden, said Chris Glaisek, Chief Planning and Design Officer at Waterkant Toronto.
“It is not yet certainty that we are doing it, but that is where we are trying to work,” he said, adding that the service would start with the focus of pleasure seekers who want to come to attractions around the harbor before they slowly build a supporters with commuters who live on the waterfront.
If it is successful, the pilot could eventually change a permanent Seabus loop that stops everywhere around the harbor, including the Toronto Islands. And if that works, Glasiek said, the next step would add service destinations beyond the port, including Etobicoke, the beaches and Scarborough. But go beyond the relatively calm waters of the inland port would need heavier ships, such as larger sea buses or ferries.
That whole process of launching a permanent Seabus loop can take more than a decade to get off the ground, Glasiek said.
“I don’t think you can do all that in one leap.”
But at the same time a private company is considering a regional Hovercraft service that could apparently compliment a Seabus route, such as Go Transit and the TTC.
Hoverink Ontario is currently planting a Hovercraft route, aimed at tourists, who will go between Toronto and the Niagara region within about half an hour. But Hoverink President Erika Potrz said that the company is planning to go beyond the Toronto-Niagara route, more acts as a forens service that transports passengers in and out of the center of Toronto to communities on the water, including Hamilton, Mississauga and Oshawa.
“I spent a lot of time on the QEW, frustrated, almost dying and missing things with my children,” said Potrz, who has converted most of her career around the GTA. “So for me it is definitely a bit of a legacy piece.”
The Hoverink -Forensreizen could run between one community in the center, such as Burlington to Toronto, said Potrz. Or it can be more a milk route over the waterfront, by picking up passengers and losing weight at every ‘hoverport’. The hoverports can be on land or act as a floating dock on the water. The trips would be similar to the time that Go Trains need to endure the region, said Potrz, and estimated that a Mississauga to Toronto Trip would take about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the headwind. But they will not go anywhere near the tens of millions of people who trust Go trains.
The two hovercraft from Hijverink each wear up to 180 people and floating above land, water or ice. They can walk all year round, in all weather conditions, without causing discomfort to passengers inside, Potrz said.
“You don’t feel that you are on water. You feel that you are on a train.”
Hoverlink currently has an agreement with Havens Toronto to operate from Billy Bishop Airport on the Toronto Islands. Potrz said that the Toronto-Niagara service is expected to be performed in two to three years. The costs are not final, but Hoverink has suggested that it would be in $ 60 for a return.
To be a competitive command service, however, Hoverlink should be much cheaper, and Potrz said that Hoverink would look for government financing to compensate for the costs.
“The right investors are needed, the right visionaries are needed. And I think we all know that not everyone is a visionary,” she said. “Success causes more success. So if (Toronto to Niagara) Uber is successful, then we will not have any problems with financing future phases.”
In the past, money has been a major obstacle. In 2007, the TTC looked at the running of two separate commuter routes – one from Etobicoke, to Humber Bay, which ran back and forth from the center, the other from Scarborough, in Bluffer’s Park. But the TTC report thought that the service would be too expensive and unreliable, because it would cause delays or cancellations on the route again.
“Fast ferry service seems to offer few or no benefits for travel time compared to surface entry,” the report thought. Moreover, it would cost much more. Estimates showed that the TTC should subsidize the service with a maximum of $ 39 per ride to offer prices competing with Go Transit.
The report had the start -up costs of around $ 40 million, including the purchase of four ferries and an extra $ 13 million a year in operating costs.
When John Tory was elected mayor in 2014, he said he had similar problems with a possible water transport service.
“We have investigated enough to know that it was not something that you could easily continue with immediately. This happens a lot in Toronto, I think, with things,” Tory said in an interview in August.
Another concern, he said, it was again. Commuters are routine creatures. Only a few canceled journeys, or a miserable experience on a cold morning, would be needed to break the habit.
“People would probably not use it to go to work, for example, if they thought there was a problem, you know, a certain Wednesday with strong wind and large waves,” said Tory, adding that packed metro cars are not comfortable, but “probably ranking for a chair, sent around like a ping pong ball.”
But he acknowledged that this time the discussion is different, smaller and more realistic, with a Seabus route in the inland port that starts as a seasonal recreation service, instead of living -working traffic.
“I mean, you know, build it and they will come? You know, that’s the question. Will they come?” Tory said. “It’s worth trying.”
With files from Ben Spurr
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