[yin_yang]

There must have been proposals in the past via this route...what have they been? Seems like a good spot to build a parking garage and then have a pedestrian bridge...or even to extend the distillery streetcar all the way down to there and build a bridge to the island and have it end with a loop at the very eastern tip of the residential area. The area around Rebel is getting built up soon anyway with condos and offices right?

 

[innsertnamehere]

I believe there has been some proposals at some time.

The history of a bridge link to the Islands is long and extremely political however. Most of the people living there vastly prefer the ferry service - even if a fixed link would be a huge improvement.Too many concerns of higher traffic to the islands and making them "too busy".

To me Downtown Toronto is severely under serviced in terms of park space, and we have a massive public park that is quite accessible to downtown, but we choose to make difficult to access for, well, no particular reason. Capitalizing on improving access to the islands could make a huge difference for access to parkland for the downtown.

At least the city is (finally) planning on buying some new, larger ferries.

 

[yin_yang]

Those concerns are really silly in my opinion. Look at Google maps street view go and "walk around" virtually...the islands are not that busy, the ferries are only on weekends in the summer, when they are jammed. The park could use more people, a streetcar would probably bring in 10-20% more people at most, which is good. I bet half the people will decide to go to hang out at cherry beach and not the islands.

 

[DSC]

This thread title probably needs to have word FANTASY added to it. As you may have noticed, we have problems deciding about projects here and even those with large % in favour (relief line) are more talk than action! I assume you are aware that ships use the eastern channel so any bridge would need to be very tall (or openable) and would need huge approach roads if used by anything except pedestrians and cyclists. The Islands are really a park and getting to it by ferry is part of the whole experience.

 

[yin_yang]

Ok so have a little ferry across then or a high bridge or an underwater tunnel. I agree it's fantasy but that's the whole point. Every reality starts with a fantasy.

 

[lenaitch]

As far as I know the eastern gap is the designated commercial shipping track into the inner harbour, probably because it provides the most maneuverable access to the few remaining commercial piers. Any link would have to be moveable. Seems like a huge expense for primarily recreation.

 

[MisterF]

Those concerns are really silly in my opinion. Look at Google maps street view go and "walk around" virtually...the islands are not that busy, the ferries are only on weekends in the summer, when they are jammed.

The ferries run every day of the week all year round.

 

[Leo_Chan]

If we want to talk about true fantasy, I'd like Lake Ontario be filled in between Queen's Quay and the Toronto Islands. More than doubling the size of downtown and a brand new waterfront to develop.

 

[DSC]

If we want to talk about true fantasy, I'd like Lake Ontario be filled in between Queen's Quay and the Toronto Islands. More than doubling the size of downtown and a brand new waterfront to develop.

Indeed, if we redevelop new waterfronts often enough we may, eventually, get in right!

 

[syn]

Those concerns are really silly in my opinion. Look at Google maps street view go and "walk around" virtually...the islands are not that busy, the ferries are only on weekends in the summer, when they are jammed. The park could use more people, a streetcar would probably bring in 10-20% more people at most, which is good. I bet half the people will decide to go to hang out at cherry beach and not the islands.

Exactly. That's how they want to keep it.

To be perfectly honest, I kind of like the fact that there's no connection to the mainland.

 

[lenaitch]

If we want to talk about true fantasy, I'd like Lake Ontario be filled in between Queen's Quay and the Toronto Islands. More than doubling the size of downtown and a brand new waterfront to develop.

Why stop there? The municipal boundaries extend well out into the lake.

 

[Steve X]

Fill the lake in and build a Union Station 2 to relief the GO trains along with a new Relief Line. All possible on the surface

 

[Johnny Au]

If we want to talk about true fantasy, I'd like Lake Ontario be filled in between Queen's Quay and the Toronto Islands. More than doubling the size of downtown and a brand new waterfront to develop.

It would need to have a canal network to support this polder.

I really like to see Toronto having a canal network.

 

[lenaitch]

They could extend it in stages: create a new waterfront - screw it up, create a new waterfront - screw it up, create a new waterfront . . .

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Forget pickering airport build our own kansai airport on an artificial island in the lake. Bonus, porter could be given first dibs on slots there providing the abandon billy bishop and allow the city turn it into parkland