Toronto’s only municipally-owned car ferry was pulled from service on Monday, and while it isn’t expected to take long to fix, it’s the latest issue in a year already marred with reliability issues that the mayor says has city staff considering the rental to bridge the gap before new ferries begin arriving in late 2026.
The Ongiara usually has the capacity to carry 220 passengers and 10 vehicles, but on Tuesday, only work vans sat on its deck as mechanics worked to fix a mechanical issue.
City spokesperson Nitish Bissonauth didn’t elaborate on what the problem is, but classified it as “minor” and said the city pulled the vehicle from service proactively on Monday to get the work done.
He didn’t provide a timeline for how long the city expects the repairs will take, but at a press conference, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said it should be operational in a matter of days.
Islanders getting off one of the passenger ferries on Tuesday said they weren’t surprised the car ferry was having issues.
“Something goes wrong with that [ferry] every year,” said Roger Sharp. He added that he thought the city had already spent too much money repairing the vessel as it is.
The news comes after a concerning year, during which there were two collisions involving the city’s aging fleet of ferries. The William Inglis, which was involved in a collision in late summer, never returned to service before the winter schedule inevitably took it out of action until the spring.
The Thomas Rennie, which the city is currently using to supplement passenger service while the Ongiara is out of commission, was also involved in a crash in April.
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Until the car-ferry returns to service, the city said that commercial and city maintenance vehicles can use the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport Service. But Sharp said relying on the airport’s ferry is overly complicated and it’s taken residents hours to get home on that route when ferries can’t run due to the harbour freezing over.
The first test of this arrangement will come when garbage pickup scheduled for Wednesday will require trucks to cross the airport’s runway to gain access to the road by the Hanlan Point ferry dock.
Beyond waste management, other islanders have pointed out issues with the ailing ferry when they need to get their homes fixed. Tony Farebrother with the Toronto Island Community Association said the car ferry’s lack of reliability makes it difficult for islanders to convince contractors that it’s worth it to take jobs off the mainland.
“It’s more expensive and more difficult to get people to come,” said Farebrother, who noted just two weeks ago the city opted to run the passenger ferry instead of the Ongiara, stranding one contractor on the island for hours.
“It’s just reinforcing that challenge,” he said.
Farebrother said that every five years, the city is required to take each ferry out of service for a full inspection. In 2023, when the Ongiara went into drydock, Farebrother said it took much longer for it to return to active service.
“When it goes in, you never know when it comes out,” he said.
Mayor Olivia Chow attempted to alleviate those concerns, saying the current work on the Ongiara should be completed within a couple of days. She also revealed that the city is considering whether the current timeline for delivery of two new ferries, expected in late 2026 and in 2027, could see some additional support for the aging fleet.
“We’re still exploring whether we can lease some extra support, later, especially in the spring,” said Chow.
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