'It will create chaos': island residents cool to bridge proposal

In winter, when there’s ice in the harbour and the ferry can’t get through, the only real way for the 650 or so residents of the Toronto Islands to get to the mainland is to take a bus from Ward’s Island to Billy Bishop Airport, then wait for a chance to cross the runway and walk through the airport’s tunnel to the base of Bathurst Street.

- JAKE EDMISTON

The journey can eat up hours of any day, according to Michael Page, a Ward’s Island resident for over 40 years. But, given the choice of all that, or a permanent bridge to the mainland — a proposal city council has agreed to study — he’d settle for the way it is.

“Oh yeah. By a long shot,” he said, sitting on his deck in the sun on Sunday morning.

This summer, maintenance issues with the city’s elderly ferry fleet and long lines at the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal have led to renewed calls for a bridge to bring cyclists and tourists across for free. But residents on the islands warned that a bridge would end up destroying the reason most people want to go there in the first place.

Faye Jordan has been on Ward’s Island for four years after spending 26 years on the waiting list for potential homebuyers. Out for a walk on Sunday, she said she couldn’t picture a bridge in the channel, funnelling thousands of people through the narrow streets of her neighbourhood.

“Look at this, how tranquil it is,” she said. “It will create chaos.”

In late June, city council approved amotion to study the possibility of a fixed link to the islands. The motion, from Coun. Jon Burnside (Ward 16, Don Valley East), came after a potential bridge was left out of the city’s new long-term plan for the islands.

At the time, Burnside told the Star that he wasn’t surprised that feedback on the bridge was mixed.

“People don’t like to give up their privilege,” he said.