Getting to bluffs shouldn’t be so tough
“No access to bluffs.”
Signs advising this can be seen all along streets leading south of Kingston Road and are an off-putting welcome to the most striking geological landmark in Toronto.
While another example of privatized shorelines in Ontario, the signs are meant to keep cars and people out of the wealthy neighbourhoods that sit atop the Scarborough Bluffs, but there are still ways to experience them.
A favourite spot to visit during the pandemic has been a stretch of the waterfront trail running between Brimley Road and Chine Drive, just south of St. Augustine’s Seminary. The trail partially runs alongside the top of the ravine that Brimley follows down to Bluffer’s Park, and has a few fantastic vantage points overlooking it all.
The clinking of masts from the marina and the sounds of happy summertime voices waft up from below. It feels almost Mediterranean. The area around here is a bit wild, too, not manicured parkland but a mix of forest and meadow, with other paths that allow hikers to scramble up and down the hills.
The view of Bluffers from here is easier to reach than getting to the park itself. The road to the popular beach is closed by police once parking fills up, and a TTC bus runs only on the weekends. Toronto Star reporter Richard Warnica tweeted in July that he dropped his family off at the beach one morning but when he returned for pick up police said he couldn’t go down and told him to call them an Uber.
Further testament to poor access at Bluffers are all the people trudging up and down the steep, narrow shouldered roadway to get to the beach. Improvements are needed.
Improvements are needed on the trail up top, too. While the view is good, the trail surface is terrible: rutted and rocky. After a rainstorm last summer while on a long bike ride, I found it impassable due to mud. Anyone with a mobility issue or device would have a very hard time here.
In a lot of Scarborough, the word “waterfront” in the waterfront trail should be in quotes, as it really isn’t all on the waterfront, instead weaving along adjacent residential streets. A similar situation exists in Etobicoke. There are important connections throughout that allow users to avoid fast and dangerous roads like Kingston, but this stretch between Brimley and Chine is only one of two unpaved sections of the trail I can recall between Pickering and Mississauga, the other being in the Harrison Properties park, a few kilometres west.
Back in 2011, there was a city plan to pave the trail here, known as the Chine Meadow, just as trails through sensitive ravines and natural areas across the city are, making them accessible and passable to all, not harming beast or plant. But area residents objected and today this key connection remains in rough shape. This needs to be fixed, as the waterfront trail is for all residents to use.
If Chine Drive and paving sounds familiar, residents of that street fought to prevent the installation of a sidewalk leading to the school on the street around the same time as the meadow path came up. It’s as if residents here don’t think they live in a city. That sidewalk was eventually installed and today is perfectly fine and the sky did not fall.
A few other Bluff access points are nearby. To the east, the Doris McCarthy Trail, just south of Bellamy and Kingston Roads, leads down to a gravel path that runs a few kilometres along the bottom of the bluffs to Guild Inn park and is a wonderful place to feel completely alone. Further on, at East Point Park, there is access to the informal beaches below the bluffs. Though people do swim here, the water quality is not regularly tested, something that should change too to facilitate more swimming areas.
Cudia Park, just off Meadowcliffe Drive, is a somewhat hidden area but is a ravine wonderland with a lookout that has an exceptional, postcard view of Bluffers Beach.
West of Chine Drive, following the Waterfront Trail, there is an unmarked roadway running south off Glen Everest Road, between Fishleigh Drive and Wynnview Court. Another steep slope, it leads to the base of the bluffs where rocks have been installed to prevent erosion. On a recent kayak trip along here I saw a number of groups out for an adventurous evening hike, another place to feel far from the city while still in the middle of it.
Year after year there are reports of people falling off the Scarborough Bluffs, needing rescue. No need to be a statistic, there are safe ways to access the bluffs, but a lot more that could be done.