In winter, when there’s ice in the harbour and the ferry can’t get through, the only real way for the 650 or so residents of the pc28Islands to get to the mainland is to take a bus from Ward’s Island to Billy Bishop Airport, then wait for a chance to cross the runway and walk through the airport’s tunnel to the base of Bathurst Street.
The journey can eat up hours of any day, according to Michael Page, a Ward’s Island resident for over 40 years. But, given the choice of all that, or a permanent bridge to the mainland — a proposal city council has agreed to study — he’d settle for the way it is.
“Oh yeah. By a long shot,” he said, sitting on his deck in the sun on Sunday morning.
This summer, maintenance issues with the city’s elderly ferry fleet and long lines at the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal have led to renewed calls for a bridge to bring cyclists and tourists across for free. But residents on the islands warned that a bridge would end up destroying the reason most people want to go there in the first place.
Faye Jordan has been on Ward’s Island for four years after spending 26 years on the waiting list for potential homebuyers. Out for a walk on Sunday, she said she couldn’t picture a bridge in the channel, funneling thousands of people through the narrow streets of her neighbourhood.
“Look at this, how tranquil it is,” she said. “It will create chaos.”
In late June, city council approved a motion to study the possibility of a fixed link to the islands. The motion, from Coun. Jon Burnside (Ward 16, Don Valley East) came after a potential bridge was left out of the city’s new long-term plan for the islands.
At the time, Burnside told the Star that he wasn’t surprised that feedback on the bridge was mixed.
“People don’t like to give up their privilege,” he said.
In an emailed statement from her office, Coun. Ausma Malik (Ward 10, Spadina-Fort-York), who represents the islands, said the bridge study will consult residents.
In a piece she co-wrote for the Star last month, former pc28city council candidate April Engelberg argued that “the time couldn’t be riper” to push for a pedestrian-cycling bridge across the 250-metre stretch of the Eastern Channel between Ward’s Island and the foot of Cherry Street, known as the Eastern Gap.
This is the current lineup to get on a ferry to the pc28Islands. It extends out of the ferry terminal and around the block.
— April Engelberg (@AprilEngelberg)
It's time to build the bridge!
Engelberg argued a lift bridge would still allow commercial shipping traffic to get through the channel. And she said the cost could be on par with the city’s long-delayed order for two new electric ferries, which city council greenlit on Thursday at a purchase price of roughly $92 million, though the first of them won’t be delivered until the fall of 2026 at the earliest. Council is also looking at leasing other vessels to provide relief until the new ferries are delivered.
“It’s the most ridiculous thing they’ve ever thought of doing,” said Colin Brodie, who has lived on Ward’s Island for 67 years. “They’ve been talking about it for years and years but it just doesn’t make sense to spend that kind of money.”
The pc28Island Community Association doesn’t have an official position on the debate, at least not yet, mostly because it doesn’t seem like the bridge idea will go anywhere, according to chair Tony Farebrother.
“Are we going to get excited over something that just seems far-fetched?” he said in an interview on Sunday. “It’s hard to believe that this idea is a serious idea.”
Residents also want to make it easier to get to the islands, he said, though not with the environmental risks associated with dropping a bridge onto the relatively untamed edge of Ward’s Island.
Farebrother said that it makes more sense to just improve the ferry service, or even repurpose the existing tunnel at the airport, which could bring visitors closer to the parkland at the western end, not the residential area in the east.
Then there is the more philosophical question, of an island’s islandness, and whether a bridge would put that in peril. Residents say there’s a charm and a sense of security that comes from being a boat ride away from the mainland.
“Part of the reason it’s so special is that you have to slow down to come and appreciate it,” Farebrother said. “It will destroy the reason that people want to come here.”
Engelberg, a lawyer who has been calling for a bridge since her 2022 run as a city council candidate for Spadina-Fort-York, isn’t buying it.
“The appeal of Toronto’s massive public park shouldn’t be that it’s difficult to access,” she said on Sunday. “It should be easy for everybody to access.”
Page and his wife Claudette Abrams have been on Ward’s Island since the 1980s. He said if the bridge ends up happening, he’d feel a sense of loss.
“It would no longer be an island,” he said.
Page and Abrams said they made sure their kids understood the privilege that came with growing up in a public park on an island.
After the public bathrooms close and the ferry service shuts down for the night, people sometimes knock on their door asking for advice on what to do, some water or a chance to use their bathroom. The boat ride in and out, and all the inconvenience it can bring, is just part of being there.
“There’s actually this thing that happens when you come to the island,” Abrams said. “You look back on the city and watch the city get smaller and zoom out and you just chill.”
With files from Ben Cohen and Ben Spurr.
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