Could Lake Ontario be the answer for commuters heading downtown? Waterfront Toronto wants to know

The government agency that oversees Toronto's waterfront is mulling the idea of an expanded water shuttle network that could serve the city's waterfront communities from Etobicoke to Scarborough.

Waterfront Toronto's request for proposals, issued April 4, gives companies until April 27 to submit their ideas about the feasibility of the project.

Waterfront Toronto's guidelines envision a three-tier expansion:

Chris Glasiek, chief planning and design officer with Waterfront Toronto, says changes are needed to accommodate the development and popularity of the waterfront.

"As the residential population grows on the waterfront, could there be demand for a sea bus system? If so, what might need to be put in place to make that happen?" asked Glaisek. "Is that something the city would want to do? Does it need to be regulated? So all of those are things we'll be looking at."

Enhanced ferry service has been attempted in the city before. Most recently, Hoverlink Ontario Inc. announced it will begin hovercraft service between Toronto and Niagara Region this summer. A Toronto-Rochester ferry link in 2004 only lasted a couple of seasons.

Athough the request for proposals is only a couple of weeks old, it's already drawing sharp reaction from waterfront users, like Paul Howard, commodore of the Outer Harbour Sailing Federation and member of the group Friends of Cherry Beach.

He says an enhanced water taxi service is probably not feasible.

"A lot of taxis are slow, they require a lot of intensive infrastructure, they're seasonal," he said."They'd be very unreliable because of ... wind and waves, and also it's much shorter by road."

As well, he said, commuters depending on a water taxi, or sea bus to get to and from downtown could be in for a rough ride.

"It might not be very pleasant if it was blowing 20 knots of wind coming out of the Eastern Gap. There'd be six-foot waves."

Howard and his federation have been meeting with Waterfront Toronto about the idea since 2020, and he says he's made it clear to the agency that he wants no motorized watercraft within the Outer Harbour, where, he says, thousands of people currently gather for long-distance swims, kite-boarding, wind-surfing, sailing and other activities that could be disrupted by new water taxis or sea buses.

And with the development of the Port Lands just to the north, many more thousands will be drawn to the Cherry Beach-Outer Harbour waterfront, he says.

But further west, Tony Farebrother, chair of the Toronto Island Community Association, welcomes the idea.