Months after forcing two Toronto Islands ferries to cut their passenger loads nearly in half, Transport Canada rolled back its capacity restrictions Thursday following pressure from city staff.

The Thomas Rennie and Sam McBride had their capacities cut to 524 passengers each from 974 passengers to meet federal marine safety standards. They may now carry 736 people each.

“It’s progress,” said James Dann, manager of the city’s waterfront parks, who has been a key figure in trying to return the boats to their traditional capacity.

The bureaucratic nightmare has slowed ferry service and left passengers waiting on the docks in frustration.

Although the new passenger limits kicked in this spring, the trouble with Toronto’s aging ferry fleet began in 2008 when Transport Canada ordered the city to upgrade three boats — the William Inglis and Sam McBride, both built in the 1930s, and the Thomas Rennie, built in 1951.

The city scrounged together $5 million at the height of the recession in 2009 to pay for new engines and bulkheads for all three boats, said Dann. The vessels were upgraded in 2011.

But what Transport Canada failed to tell parks staff, he said, was that the upgrades could cause the boats to lose their grandfathered status, which exempts the aging vessels from current marine safety standards.

It wasn’t until Transport Canada returned to Toronto’s docks to inspect the boats earlier this year that staff were told two of the three had lost their grandfathered status as a result of the upgrades. (A previous Star report misstated that all three were involved.)

That forced the two ferries to cut their capacities by nearly 50 per cent to comply with the marine safety rules, which align with international standards.

Transport Canada spokeswoman Kelly James said the city parks department consulted with the federal agency “on numerous occasions” before they decided to upgrade the ferries.

But Dann said Transport Canada failed to inform them about the risks of losing their status.

“It was a terrible shock,” said Dann.

The parks department applied for an exemption from current safety standards in early June, noting that the ferry fleet has run without incident for decades and faces few environmental threats in the sheltered Toronto harbour.

The application remained under review with Transport Canada on Thursday, but Dann said federal officials accepted the offer to slightly increase capacity.

They suggested one compromise — a barricade for the ferries’ top decks to limit the number of people allowed there. Parks staff rebuffed calls for a barricade (citing concerns over passenger views from the decks) but hope to find a compromise, Dann said.

As both parties continued talks Thursday, Councillor Pam McConnell, whose ward includes the islands, questioned how city staff overlooked the grandfathered clause when they were considering the multi-million-dollar upgrades several years ago.

“Where was Transport Canada in that discussion and where were we in that discussion?” she asked. “When we thought we were being efficient with money, we were actually in the long run being very short-sighted.”

McConnell said the city has long neglected its ferries, an attitude that has resulted in an inefficient water transit system that hurts tourism opportunities on the islands.

“We needed several new ferries yesterday,” she said. “We need to invest.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Bill Beasley, president of the islands’ Centreville amusement park, said his company has raised concerns over ferry capacity with the parks department “numerous times.” The current fleet simply can’t manage the crush of passengers wanting to visit on summer weekends and holidays, he said.

“The city should invest in new boats with bigger capacity, no question,” said Beasley. “That’s what governments do, take care of the public.”

But at an estimated $8 million per vessel, Dann said the parks department is far from able to purchase new ferries in the near future. The department established a fleet replacement strategy earlier this year to begin collecting funds, but “it’s hard to find $8 million.”