Mayor heats up about slides
Tory denounces city’s solution for Corktown Common’s too-hot playground equipment
Mayor John Tory is “very unhappy” that city staff boarded up slides at Corktown Common playground over concerns the sun-heated silver surface will burn children.
The award-winning West Don Lands park that opened in 2013 “was built to be excellent, it was built to be used by families and children,” Tory said Wednesday in response to a reporter’s question after the slide closure was mocked on social media as an example of the “nanny state.”
“That our solution, that the best someone can come up with is to board up slides that are there, to me seems ridiculous.”
CBC reported last summer that a girl got a second-degree burn on her leg after going down one of the metal slides. The material is a throwback anomaly among Toronto parks slides made of plastic or other materials that don’t get excessively hot in the summer sun.
Parks staff erected the barrier as a temporary measure May 24. Trees planted around the slides that were supposed to help cool them “are not providing adequate shade cover this year,” said Jane Arbour, a parks department spokesperson.
“Parks staff are working on obtaining shade sales to mitigate the effect of the sun while the trees are maturing. The intent is to have the slides reopened for use as soon as possible this summer.”
Tory issued a challenge to people to help find a solution, suggesting a “canopy.”
Others on Twitter suggested cool running water on the surface.