A bridge, a tunnel, a gondola—all the ways the city may connect the Toronto Islands to the mainland
Expensive ideas to help more people let loose at the beach
Ah, the Toronto Islands: so close yet so far away. Despite being a stone’s throw from the shore at either end, the Edenic archipelago has never had a proper pedestrian connection to its main park, instead being a mandatory ferry ride away. Even after crossing the tunnel to Billy Bishop Airport, which opened in 2015, beach-seeking pedestrians will find themselves a whole runway away from Hanlan’s. But city council is talking about bridges again, raising the possibility of a fully connected island—with some very big caveats attached.
Lots of people like the islands: they see nearly two million visitors per year and almost 18,000 per day during peak summer, when tourists and townies alike come to swim in the cool waters and gaze out at the skyline. They’re also home to some 650 islanders, full-time residents who lucked out on a lease of one of the province-owned parcels of land there.
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They include Tony Fairbrother, who frets about what even more visitors will do to their parkland home. “We care about this place,” he says. “We love the island. When it’s really busy, people are peeing into our shrubs.”
To get there, visitors and residents alike use the city-run ferries, which run until 10 p.m. and offer $9.11 round trips, or hire private water taxis, which are more expensive—about $13 per person—and are prone to traffic jams given the limited berths available on the island side. With the East Harbour and Port Lands developments set to bring even more people to the waterfront, the city is keen on extending them access to the islands and has called together a task force to figure out how.
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The more realistic short-term ideas are pretty ho-hum: more water taxis or even a “sea bus,” essentially a smaller ferry plying a fixed route east-west along the waterfront and maybe also the islands. The long-term solutions are wilder: a bridge 12 storeys high or a floating, swinging one that can open to let ships pass; a pedestrian tunnel that would rival the one at Billy Bishop; or a waterfront gondola suspended 12 metres in the air.
Why does walking to the island require an architectural feat out of science fiction? As it turns out, many boats squeeze through the narrow corridors on either side, primarily the East Passage, out by the Port Lands. That 280-metre-wide gap accommodates cargo ships carrying over two million tonnes of goods as well as cruise ships bringing over 18,000 passengers per year. Ships are big, and any infrastructure spanning the gap will need to avoid them.
That makes the whole situation rather complicated. In their report to council, city staff admitted that they were scratching their heads—they were pretty sure a bridge would cost over $100 million, but as they adroitly noted, “Staff did not have the experience necessary to complete a cost analysis of a gondola option.” Me neither, folks.
Anthony Milton is a freelance journalist based in Toronto specializing in long-form magazine writing. He previously worked as an assistant editor at Toronto Life, where he launched the Front Row newsletter. He regularly contributes all sorts of stories to the magazine, including deep dives on sports, business and housing as well as short-form commentary on our ever-changing city, from its obsession with cherry blossoms to its maddening NIMBYism. His work has also appeared in Maclean’s, Ricochet, TVO, the Trillium and more.
