Kate Harries
Toronto Star

The Toronto Star

Waterfront rejuvenation gets mixed reception

ONTARIO REPORTER

A group from the Waterfront Regeneration Trust is cycling the full length of the Lake Ontario Waterfront Trail. Reporter Kate Harries rides along. Lake Ontario sparkles at this time of year, and along the Greater Toronto shoreline the excitement is palpable.

There's a feeling that many small victories are adding up to a major success story in breaching ancient barriers to the waterfront - railways, highways, industry and private development.

That's been the theme all day as a punishing day's cycling takes us from the Mississauga-Oakville border through Toronto to the mouth of the Rouge River - 74 kilometres in 12 hours.

But the excitement is muted in Etobicoke. And almost extinct in Scarborough.

These two former cities at the margins of amalgamated Toronto feel like they're playing ugly sisters to downtown's Cinderella.

The prince, naturally, is Robert Fung, the financier who's spearheading Toronto's waterfront revitalization plans.

"In the context of the amalgamated city, we are being made to feel like second-class citizens," says Liz Oliver of the West Rouge Residents Association.

The waterfront trail takes us past ecological gems, gilt-edged real estate and historic landmarks. Then it stops when we reach the eastern edge of Toronto's Beaches neighbourhood. The 20-kilometre gap, stranding cyclists along Kingston Rd., lasts through to the Rouge, Toronto's easterly border.

That's where some 25,000 people live, in a residential enclave south of the 401 between Highland Creek and the Rouge, in three neighbourhoods known as West Rouge, Port Union and Centennial.

There's a beach at Highland Creek, the western boundary, that's hard to access - and therefore favoured by nudists - and another at the Pickering border, the Rouge Beach Park.

In between, "we've got absolutely nothing," says Brian Sheridan, another West Rouge activist. "We have three waterfront communities - and we can't get to the water."

Midway, at Port Union Rd., a tunnel has been built under the railway line. But the lakefront on the other side of the tracks is stony and uninviting.

"We want to enjoy the lake without having to stand," says Bob Barron, president of a Centennial community association. There's a $12 million plan to do just that, by upgrading the shoreline, putting in the waterfront trail from Highland Creek to the Rouge and adding a waterfront park at Port Union.

The project, 10 years in the planning, has been ready to go, with all municipal, environmental and other approvals in place, since May, 2001, Barron says. "We're waiting for the provincial and federal governments to put in the money that they've promised."

Small wonder that the group gathered at the Port Union underpass to nowhere view Fung's grandiose plans with a jaundiced eye.

It will take years for his $12 billion vision, focused on the downtown and docklands area, to come to fruition, they say. And there seems to be no interest in extending a tiny portion of the largesse to the outlying areas.

The thoughts expressed in Scarborough are articulated earlier in the day as we ride through Etobicoke and meet a group at tiny Superior Park

Residents here also feel left out, says Debbie Wagdin of Citizens Concerned about the Future of the Etobicoke Waterfront.

A representative of Fung's Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp. addressed her group's annual general meeting, she says. "He said we would be better off if we were closer to to Exhibition Place."

Wagdin notes that projects in Etobicoke enhance the waterfront as a whole, by providing links and adding to the mix of uses and attractions. "We need some emphasis on the margins, there is more to the waterfront than the central area."

The plan here is for a Mimico linear park to link Superior and two other small parks, in place of the broken concrete, garbage and rickety fences in front of ancient apartment buildings.

This $3.8 million project will add water recreation for the community, create two new beaches, extend the waterfront trail and establish a wetland habitat for fish and wild life.

Advocates in Etobicoke and Scarborough feel ignored, as the downtown
area remains the focus of plans for revamping the waterfront

Both the Mimico and Port Union projects were removed from Toronto's budget two years ago with the thought that they would fall under Fung's mandate, explains Etobicoke Lakeshore Councillor Irene Jones.

But at present, his mandate is narrowly defined to encompass just four projects - the expansion of the Union Station subway station, the extension of Front St., restoring the mouth of the Don River and cleaning up the docklands soil.

Jones says she's met with Fung to urge that he proceed with the outlying projects - which would provide quick and tangible results compared with his other tasks - and he's told her he doesn't have the authority to do so.

"He has to have the provincial and federal government say yes, these are consistent with his mandate," she explains.

For the Scarborough and Etobicoke activists, it all sounds like just another runaround. "This has been a 10-year fight for me," sighs Barron.

This is the third leg of a personal challenge for Vicki Barron (no relation) and Marlaine Koehler of the Waterfront Regeneration Trust and for this Star reporter - to cycle the full length of the 650-kilometre Lake Ontario waterfront trail.

We're doing it in one- or two-day stages, once a month. In Mississauga, our guide is director of planning administration Bruce Carr. The trail picks up at Winston Churchill Blvd., where we left off a month ago and follows easements negotiated by the city with various industries, including the massive PetroCanada refinery.

Some weren't interested in giving up a strip of land for a local trail, Carr recalls. But the waterfront trail, which it is hoped will one day become a continuous off-road link from Niagara-on-the Lake to Gananoque, prompted a different reaction.

"When they heard it was part of something bigger, they were willing to co-operate. The waterfront trail was the thin end of the wedge - it opened up other opportunities."

A Mississauga trails guide is available from the city and includes the sights along the way, such as Rattray Marsh, the Adamson estate, and the Rhodedendron Gardens, featuring the collection of a rhodo authority of international repute, the late Joseph Brueckner. A waterfront trail mapbook is also available (call the trust at 416-943-8080).

Larry Field, waterfront specialist for the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, meets us at the Etobicoke border.

Guided by the trail's distinctive signs, we ride along quiet neighbourhood streets, through Sam Smith Park and along Lake Shore Blvd. Then the off-road trail picks up again, urban and manicured as it passes in front of two condo towers, before swooping over Mimico Creek and into Humber Bay Park.

The next section of the waterfront was the focus of bitter political battles in the early '90s as development interests fought parkland advocates over the lands behind the Lake Shore's notorious motel strip.

Field is one of the architects of the deal that resulted in the creation of Humber Bay Shores, a 13-acre strip of parkland along the lake. "The last 18 years, it's been my baby," he says as we cycle through a butterfly garden, other ecologically friendly plantings and a sophisticated storm water management facility.

He views it as a great example of how public agencies can create healthy communities by putting in place parks and some of the underground infrastructure that will support economic development.

The green and blue lines that distinguish the Martin Goodman Trail signal our arrival in the old city of Toronto. This precursor of the waterfront trail, named after a president of the Toronto Star who died in 1981 aged 46, was an early expression of modern urban sensitivities.

Now, its 3-metre width seems narrow and the city is working on expanding and rebuilding it, says Barry Hughes, Toronto's supervisor of landscape and planning initiatives.

Wherever possible, the trail is being twinned so pedestrians can be separated from cyclists and roller-bladers - especially bladers, who take up the most space of all trail users, a full 3-metre width when they build up speed.

Paradoxically, Ontario Place, the province's waterfront showcase, is the one spot where the city has not been able to address inadequacies in the old trail.

"Ontario Place are not interested. They have other priorities," Hughes says as we negotiate an awkward blind corner.

Harbourfront. The music garden. The Spadina Quay wetland, a tiny wilderness powerhouse built on what was once a parking lot. Treasures abound as we weave our way through the crowds and head toward the docklands, where a massive makeover envisions the transformation of some 800 hectares of mostly vacant land into an international "convergence" district, where people will live, work and play.

About 75 per cent of the land is in public hands - through the port authority and the city. That's to be transferred to Fung's corporation prior to being put up for commercial and residential development through private-public partnerships.

Here, where viper's bugloss sends up its vivid blue spires, will be condos. There, where a killdeer squawks a warning to its fledglings, a massive movie and television studio is projected.

It seems strange, after cycling almost 200 kilometres along Lake Ontario's shore, to come to the point with the greatest potential - and find no locals waiting to give us details of an exciting new project or escort us around a lovingly preserved local landmark.

That's because this is virgin territory. The people have yet to come. When they do, hopefully, the killdeer and viper's bugloss will still find a space to flourish.

Copyright © 2002 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

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