August 25, 2024
Dear Toronto Mayor Chow,
The state of Toronto City ferry service to the Toronto Islands is
awful. It seems like the management of the ferry service don't take
seriously their responsibilities to provide predictable, reliable
service at the advertised times and the result is an angry public,
myself included.
On two recent
occasions, I've been trapped on the island with my partner as we waited
hours for a ferry (for which we had already paid) to return us back to the mainland. Advertised
departure times on the city's website are COMPLETELY IGNORED by ferry
staff as ferries seem to come and go when they please. No apologies to
waiting residents are ever given by any ferry staff I've seen after these
long waits. In early July, we arrived at Hanlan's Point on the island
hoping to catch the 9:45 pm return ferry to the mainland. The 9:45 pm
schedule never came, nor did the 10:30 pm. Only the 11 pm showed up
with over 300 people waiting impatiently to board.
On
August long weekend Sunday, a similar occasion happened at Centre
Island. We arrived on time for the 9:45 pm schedule thinking perhaps
the Toronto Ferry service would respect its advertised time for Centre
Island as they don't for Hanlan's Point. When we arrived at 9:30 pm at the Centre Island ferry port,
there were over 400-500 people already waiting in front of us. No ferry
showed up until 10:10 pm, 25 minutes late, however only about half of
those waiting made it onto that ferry, which angered and frustrated
hundreds of people. We had to wait for the next ferry which didn't
show up until 10:40 pm.
The waiting stall by the Centre Island port resembles a place you'd force animals to wait for slaughter. It is
dark, crowded and if there were some kind of emergency, or panic,
hundreds of Toronto residents could be greatly injured or killed. The
conditions are that bad. Furthermore, there was ZERO information from
City of Toronto officials to help or guide the crowd. No sense when the
next ferry would arrive. Calls to the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal were
met with defiance and lack of empathy. Our justifiable outrage at their
pathetic service was ignored - in fact, city staff hung up on me rather
than explain why ferry services were so different than advertised.
The staff person didn't seem to care about the dangerous conditions that
the city was forcing people into waiting for a return ferry home. I
took the picture below of the giant stall where people were forced to
wait for a ferry that may never come.
 |
| Photo I took in waiting stall at Centre Island port on Aug 4, 2024 |
The number of frustrated Toronto residents is now in the thousands following this summer of incompetence. I know we are not alone in our frustrations with the city's ferry service.
I
know managers of the ferry service and Toronto city council have let
down Toronto residents in recent years by not planning better to repair
and replace aging ferries. The temporary loss of 2 ferries this year
really inconvenienced thousands of residents trying to get to Toronto
Islands. The level of incompetence in this mismanagement makes me
suspect perhaps city officials are simply trying to help out private water taxi
services make more money from residents' frustration with the public
ferry service. Because whoever is running Toronto Ferries does not care
about public service.
This also happens
at a time when most city services seem to be in major decline, perhaps
caused by lack of funding, but also mismanagement by city leaders, and
laziness or lack of support for city staff.
Toronto must do better than this sorry state of affairs.
We
need to build a pedestrian and cyclist bridge to the Toronto Islands
immediately so the public can access this great park without having to
experience the agony of waiting hours for an incompetent public ferry
service to bother to provide the service they are being paid to
provide.
Enough is enough! The option
of going to the Islands these days is very risky as it's clear now that
getting back from the island will be a torturous wait for a ferry to
show up an hour or two after its advertised departure time.
What are you going to do in the immediate short term to fix this sorry ferry service in Toronto?
Sincerely,
Matt Guerin
Very frustrated Toronto resident
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