I was wrong - the city is actually making pace with construction down by the bluffs. In fact, they currently have finished the
path connecting to Gates Gully. I'm quite surprised at the speed with which they are progressing every day; after visiting the construction site a few times, they seem to mark progress with posts, which (by my measurements) average 4m of new road each day! At this rate, including all weekends and holidays, the 1.5 km segment remaining between Bluffers Park and Gates Gully should be finished in roughly one year from now.
I accessed the trail via the Guild Inn, just as the last of the dump trucks and Toronto and Region Conservation authorities were packing it in for the day. That's right - from what I can tell, this project seems to be planned from a "parks and rec" as well as "watersheds protection" angle, not so much for cyclo-commuting (insert sad emoticon of your choice here). But, I didn't really expect that it would ever be for that reason - much more likely to prevent erosion of the bluffs as just a simple gravel trail.
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| The trail was churned-up from dump truck traffic |
It was just above zero during the afternoon, enough to melt all the snow/ice and turn the gravel and dirt road at the base of the bluffs into a muddy mess. Not easy going on relatively thin tyres, but
boy! was I impressed when I made it to the new construction point. Up until now, the "construction" that has been going on has consisted of merely stacking up piles of debris - I can now see why. They went at it all in one go: no waiting for fill to finish. It took less than a week to build 200m of new road/trail:
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| All new construction |
I'm glad to see that this is making priority, after about 10 years of stagnation. This could mean a completed trail system to the beaches in ~5 years, which would complete the
perfect route for commuting downtown.
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