A proposed seabus service along the Toronto waterfront is being pitched as a way to improve the community by connecting via seabus to islands along the Toronto waterfront. But experts say the idea of a seabus is years away from becoming reality.
In a recent study, the City of Toronto examined four potential routes that stretch across the Toronto waterfront, according to Toronto Star columnist and Humber journalism professor Matt Elliott. The study has narrowed its focus to the main options.
“They looked at four different routes—A, B, C, and D—and narrowed it down to A and D as the ones that were the most interesting from the various metrics they looked at, like ridership and destinations served,” Elliott said.
Routes A and D will include stops at both Ontario Place and Port Lands, and those two areas are expected to see major redevelopment in the coming years.
“With any kind of project like this, there are policy implications and also political implications,” he said. “You look at where our governments are investing right now—they are investing in Ontario Place, and they are investing in the Port Lands. So those routes have stops in both places.”
City officials have also been eager to get better access to Toronto Island, which is another factor that may have influenced the study’s conclusion.
“Looking at something like this that could also provide service to the island is very appealing to city hall and people I’ve talked to there,” he said.
Still, this report suggests that the service would likely only be running seasonally rather than year-round.
“My understanding is that they would be looking more at a seasonal thing,” Elliott said. “Operating in the winter can be challenging just based on the parts of the lake that do freeze.”
Beyond the weather concerns, demand is expected to rise during the warmer months, when citizens are visiting the waterfront destinations.
“This would be something that would be way more fun to ride in the summer versus the winter, where you probably wouldn’t want to be standing on deck and feeling those lake winds,” he added.
While this concept might be exciting, the study concludes the seabus is not economically viable in the immediate future. There have been so many projections on how it could break even with such a fare's costs; the range that they are giving is 11 to 12 dollars, and that is depending on the model.
“If you go through the report, there are tables for each scenario detailing what they think the operating costs would be and what they think the revenue would be from fares,” Elliott said
Elliott is cautioning against viewing the seabus as a major transit solution.
“Anybody who’s saying that this could replace the demand that is handled by a streetcar route or a GO train—that’s kind of a ridiculous notion,” he said. “The numbers are never going to be even in the same ballpark as what you would get with a surface route.”
Instead, he describes this project as something that can complement our current transit options.
“It’s more of a nice-to-have, a bonus, an addition to a strong transit network,” Elliott said. “It’s not going to replace any of the pieces of that transit network in any meaningful way.”
The earliest predicted timeline for the seabus to become a reality is sometime in the 2030s. But that also heavily depends on waterfront development.
“You need to get more to the point where there are multiple reasons why somebody might want to take the seabus from one stop to another on a semi-regular basis,” Elliott said.
