Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of visiting Toronto’s latest waterfront park, Biidaasige Park. Biidaasige, which roughly translates to Sunlight Shining Towards Us in Anishinaabemowin, is the flagship park of the Port Lands Redevelopment program. The program is a decades long project to redevelop the Toronto Port Lands into a livable, mixed-use community, whilst restoring the Don River to a more naturalized form.
The park is a 60-acre green space lining the Don River’s new river mouth, with a variety of amenities to encourage playful interactions with our natural environment.
What I loved
There’s a lot of love about this park. The park is intended to be a centerpiece of a massive trail system in the Port Lands, which connects all corners of the city. I particularly liked the variety of trails, which are segregated between faster modes of transportation (bikes) and hikers / walkers. A variety of road surfaces were used as well, which really helps encourage different activities and speeds throughout each area of the park.
The children’s areas were also playfully designed, with a great variety of swing structures, and even a whole cable structure for kids to play with! There’s also a outdoor fitness center, which is perfect for adults to take advantage of the open space around us.
The park also features many connection points to the river, which gives it an innate connection to the water. On my day at the park, I saw a lot of people sitting at the river edge, and surprisingly a lot of paddlers. It’s a park that faces the water instead of retreating from it, which I hope helps people realize the connections we have with the land.
Overall, the park was well designed, with a lot of natural interaction spaces between different groups of people. Although it lacks the traditional open space you’d see in most city parks, it still promotes open play with the large variety of different hang out spaces. The two addition of open leash areas are also useful for fencing off dog areas, which is important as not everyone is a fan of dogs.
What I Disliked
Surprisingly, there’s not a lot of things I dislike about the park, but one important thing to remember is that the park is the centerpiece of a community that doesn’t exist yet. As a result, it is very difficult to get to this park. There’s ample connections on the Martin Goodman Trail, but very limited transit access. On the day that I visited, many visitors chose to drive to the site. Currently, it’s a 15-ish minute walk from the closest residential development, which makes it hard to access. This will eventually improve with the development of the community, but serves as a slight barrier of access to the rest of the city.
Bike Share access also leaves much to be desired, with only two bike share stations nearby (not even at the park). I wish the Toronto Parking Authority was more coordinated with the launch of the park to build out two Bike Share stations nearby. I saw many people waiting for Bike Share slots to open up since it was crowded and many people chose to use Bike Share to the park.
What I Learned
Building a park is hard and people will probably be critical about it, no matter how nice the park is. Also, Bike Share is 100% a victim of it’s own success, and I’d appreciate it if they could be better at bike distribution during large, preplanned events. Thanks!
