With private home development crowding many of the waterfront areas next to Lake Ontario in Toronto, locals and parks advocates are left with few access options.
"The waterfront property here is private. So is much of the land between Colonel Samuel Smith Park, the next major waterfront park you'll come to, and Humber Bay Park, the park after that."
"They paved the waterfront, put up some parking lots – and houses and apartment buildings, stores and No Trespassing signs. Unless you live or work here, you can't get close."
"Downtown, east of Yonge St., the problem is the same. From Yonge until Tommy Thompson Park, the Waterfront Trail would more appropriately be called the Barbed Wire Fence Trail."
"'We lack a unified vision about how we access our waterfront lands,' says Urban Strategies Inc. partner Pino Di Mascio, who has worked with Waterfront Toronto for six years. 'And that's beyond just the central waterfront but right into the west beaches and the others. There's just too much disparity.'"
FULL STORY: A waterfront so near yet so far
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