Based on a deputation by Drew Blackwell, Board of Directors, Mimico Residents Association, to the Toronto City Budget Committee, 2026
As a voice for the 40,000 residents in the southeast portion of Ward 3, the Mimico Residents Association works with the City to ensure that ongoing development in our area is sustainable — with good infrastructure, transit, and public services, as well as effective restoration and conservation of the remarkable natural environment we enjoy on the shore of Lake Ontario.
Progress Worth Celebrating
The 2026 city capital budget includes several welcome investments for our community: extending Legion Road, expanding our new Grand Avenue Park, and developing public space at the old train station across from the Mimico GO station. We share the City’s frustration with the repeated failures of reliance on private developers and Metrolinx at both Mimico GO and the long-promised Park Lawn GO, and we support the City’s efforts to find a better way to build the transit service our community desperately needs.
An Extraordinary Opportunity
The area stretching from the old train station on Royal York Road to the former Christie site on Park Lawn includes huge tracts of vacant land that could house homes and businesses. It also includes the severely damaged wetlands next to Bonar Creek and the abandoned woods and grassland bordering our beloved Mimico Creek — the recent victim of a major chemical spill.
Despite decades of stalled development-charge financing along this stretch, the area is restorable. In fact, it provides an extraordinary and unique opportunity to build the “city within a park” that has, and should continue to, provide the vision of what we aspire to create — by respecting, recovering, and enjoying the ravines, urban forests, parklands, and lakeshore in the meeting place we know as Toronto.
A Vision 27 Years in the Making
In 1999, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority established the Etobicoke and Mimico Creek Watersheds Task Force. By 2002, the Task Force completed a major report, Greening Our Watersheds: Revitalization Strategies for Etobicoke and Mimico Creeks, which provided a detailed strategy for the two creeks in Ward 3. That report:
- Outlined the neglect that began in the 1950s, when rapid suburbanization channelized and degraded both creeks
- Recalled that the 1985 International Joint Commission identified the two creeks as one of Toronto’s “Areas of Concern”
- Recommended an ongoing Watershed Coalition to coordinate restoration efforts
“The Task Force has created a plan that will take these polluted creeks and disconnected landscapes and make them vibrant, connected and sustainable — a plan that will educate those who live, work or play in the watersheds as to how they can live in harmony with their natural surroundings. In order to realize our vision we must respect, protect and regenerate the natural and human heritage of the watersheds.”
“If the Watersheds Coalition uses these principles as a guide… then in the year 2025 the Etobicoke and Mimico Creek watersheds will be healthier and more sustainable… where people live in harmony with the environment, where the water is clean, where greenspaces are vital and connected, and where fish and wildlife thrive.”
— Greening Our Watersheds, TRCA Task Force Report, 2002
The year 2025 has come and gone. How close are we to that vision?
Etobicoke Creek: A Success Story
In the 24 years since those words were written, significant steps have been taken to fulfil the vision for Etobicoke Creek. Today, thousands of people walk and cycle on the Etobicoke Creek trail and watch the fish coming up to spawn. The 2026 city budget contains funds to build the Sherway “missing link” in the Etobicoke Creek trail — a welcome investment.
Mimico Creek: Left Behind
Unfortunately, the recommendations for Mimico Creek have not received the same attention.
The 1998 State of the Watershed Report recommended “estuary creation at the mouth” and “a pedestrian bridge over the Creek.” Both were accomplished: the estuary was created, and a striking pedestrian bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava was built. Many thousands of Torontonians cross it every day.
At Lake Shore Boulevard, however, the improvements stopped.
The 1998 recommendations also included proposals for:
- Wetland and native forest east of Legion Road
- Wetland habitat, forest cover, trail development, and naturalization north of Lake Shore Boulevard on the west side of the creek
Except for a short pedestrian walkway on the west side of Park Lawn Plaza, nothing has been done north of Lake Shore Boulevard.
The Human Cost of Inaction
To reach Lake Ontario, the hundreds of residents in the Manitoba Street condo development should be able to walk in the ravine, beside the creek. Instead, they have to walk beside traffic on the sidewalks to the Gardiner Expressway off-ramp and Park Lawn Road under the GO tracks, before navigating past traffic heading into the Park Lawn Plaza or down to Lake Shore Boulevard.
Photos: Drew Blackwell
Plans Exist — They Just Haven’t Been Built
Plans for a Mimico Creek trail between Lake Shore Boulevard and The Queensway already exist. Numerous maps, designs, and city reports have explained what should be done, what can be done, and why it hasn’t been done.
A 2016 staff report on Etobicoke and Mimico Creeks stated that plans for water treatment near Bonar Creek and for the Legion Road Extension needed to be completed first before Mimico Creek planning could proceed.
Those plans are now ready. With our applause, money for the Legion Road Extension is now included in the capital budget.
The Ask: A 2 km Trail That Would Change Everything
Now it is time for Mimico Creek itself.
We urge the City to direct the Parks and Recreation Department’s Western District Capital Projects Management team to:
- Review the design of the Mimico Creek Trail from Park Lawn Boulevard to The Queensway
- Link the trail to the planned expansion of Grand Avenue Park
- Begin construction of this short, inexpensive trail of less than 2 kilometres
The thousands of us who live in Mimico and Humber Bay will support this effort. It is time to take at least a first step toward realization of the vision so eloquently articulated by the Watershed Task Force 24 years ago.
Please don’t wait 24 more years. Let us take the first step to recover Mimico Creek — now, in the 2026 capital budget.
Learn More
- Mimico Creek Watershed — Toronto and Region Conservation Authority
- Mimico Creek Restoration and Water Infrastructure Protection Study — City of Toronto
- Etobicoke & Mimico Creek Watershed Resources — TRCA
- Grand Avenue Park Expansion — City of Toronto
- Park Lawn Lake Shore Transportation Master Plan — City of Toronto (includes Legion Road Extension)
- Mimico Creek — Wikipedia
- Mimico Creek Pedestrian Bridge — Santiago Calatrava Architects
- Great Lakes Areas of Concern — International Joint Commission
The Mimico Residents Association represents and advocates for residents in the southeast portion of Ward 3. Join us — membership is $12/year.