Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
The island residents don't want too many people having easy access to their little oasis.
Furthermore, is there any proof that a fixed link will lead to increased commercialization?
Well here's the thing - there's now many thousands more people living within view of the Islands than there were 10-15 years ago. So I'm not the only one, and that number is only going to get bigger as the West Donlands, portlands and Cityplace are completed. The Islands might be the local park for hundreds of thousands of people within the next 30 years. I have no problem with the ferries if they can improve service and if the fee is removed. But to me, that doesn't make much sense when a fixed link serves both purposes, perhaps better. Yes, the ferries are cool to take, and perhaps you can make an argument from a tourism/heritage perspective it is important to maintain it, but downtown Toronto and the Waterfront aren't what they used to be, and we should be trying to provide as many people as possible the opportunity to access the space with the fewest restrictions.
There will already be amazing parks in all of those neighbourhoods.
- CityPlace has Copeland's park, Fort York, the Lakeshore boardwalk.
- West Donlands and Portlands will have a MASSIVE park and recreation area and sports arenas and a bunch of little parks.
- Nearly entire stretch of Queens Quay will become one big park boulevard with supplemental parks at each of the slips, like hTo, Sugar Beach, etc.
The $45 million pedestrian tunnel to Billy Bishop airport will start construction in 2011. To finance the 123-metre tunnel they will include user fees, hopefully in the airport fees. However, the plans seem to be that you will not be able to circle the airport to get to the rest of the islands. Something about airplanes landing and taking off.
Why don't they experiment with a perimeter bicycle path? Put in rumble strips or speed bumps where the flightpath of the airplane runway are to alert bicyclists..
Why don't they experiment with a perimeter bicycle path? Put in rumble strips or speed bumps where the flightpath of the airplane runway are to alert bicyclists..