Community members looking for answers on city’s plans for West Scarborough Rail Path

By MATTHEW STEPHENS

The Scarborough United Neighbourhoods (SUN) organization is concerned about the future of the proposed West Scarborough Rail Path.

SUN is worried the City of Toronto may disregard plans for the path, which would provide a crucial link in a safe trail system from Lake Ontario at the Don Valley to Rouge National Park at the end of the Meadoway Trail through Scarborough hydro fields.

“Every part of the city has a rail trail, but Scarborough does not. This trail would complete a safe, continuous pedestrian and cycling trail,” said SUN in an email to Beach Metro Community News.

According to the organization, the project, which is part of the Warden Woods Secondary Plan, has been proposed by numerous city planners and engineers over the years.

According to Misha Perozak of the Scarborough Junction Community Organization, depositions have been made to defer the decision to drop the Scarborough Rail Trail Project, which has now prompted a community consultation meeting with Toronto city staff and Scarborough Southwest Councillor Parthi Kandavel next week.

The meeting will take place on Wednesday, May 7 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Warden Hilltop Community Centre, 25 Mendelssohn St.

“It’s been included in the Warden Woods Secondary Plan and it’s been on the agenda of the City of Toronto’s infrastructure and environment committee – and there is where the problem got worse, because city transportation staff were trying to get that bumped off last summer, they were trying to get that bumped off to the infrastructure committee as part of the cycling network,” said Perozak in an interview with Beach Metro Community News this week.

“We got wind of it, we made some depositions, wrote some letters, connected with other environmental groups, cycling groups, and community groups – and through our councillor, we were able to defer that decision and ask for a full report from City of Toronto transportation. We’ve been waiting for almost a year now for this report. So apparently, they reported to the councillor’s office, and we finally have a meeting set up on May 7.”

The city’s plan for Warden Woods (an approximately 68-hectare expanse of land stretching 1.8 kilometres along Warden Avenue, north and south of St. Clair Avenue East) aims to “support private and public investment in the creation of a new community, integrated with the surrounding residential communities and ravine system, and to establish compatible interfaces with residual and abutting employment areas.”

The community within the surrounding area of Warden Woods contains a mixture of public and private lands, including lands owned by the city and Ontario Hydro, a section of the Massey Creek ravine, heritage resources including the Bell Estate and the Lily Cups building, and a variety of active and former employment uses.

Perozak believes the city has failed to make a decision on the project due to several impeding factors, including TTC’s requests to take the property, the trail’s proximity to hydro towers, live train tracks adjacent to the trail from Birchmount to Kennedy roads; complications in the land’s true ownership, and the location of a four-kilometre strip of historic underground passages connected to the GECO munitions factory – Canada’s largest munitions factory during the Second World War.

According to Perozak and Ron Parkinson of SUN, the plan for the rail trail was first proposed more than 50 years ago by University of Toronto graduate students, who sought to establish a bike trail that would span from Warden Subway Station to the Toronto Zoo.

At the May 7 meeting, Perozak is hoping the city will have answers to questions he and the Scarborough Junction community have been asking for over a year regarding the dropping of the project.

“The other thing is, they’re quoting  ‘complicated ownership’ along the trail. That the city doesn’t own all the land. Hopefully we’re going to find out exactly who does finally, and then we can maybe go to them and ask them to let us use the land. Because hydro and the city have a deal where the city can apply to use hydro land for parks, dog parks, trails; not a big deal. Railway might be more of a problem, but let’s find out. We don’t know yet, but I think those obstacles can be overcome,” said Perozak.

“We hope to have some of our questions answered and find out what their resistance is or what their concerns are and see if they can be addressed.”

For more information about the upcoming community meeting, head to https://www.danforthgardens.ca/2025/04/west-scarborough-rail-path-community.html#more.