‘I’m worried it will be forgotten’: Keswick pedestrian bridge on thin ice

Georgina resident wants to see bridge built to prevent local youth falling through the ice

Yorkregion.com
Dec. 11, 2020
Amanda Persico

All too many times, the community is familiar with trucks, anglers and pedestrians falling through unstable ice in the middle of winter.

It’s about this time, when ice starts to form on the lake and surrounding rivers, that Keswick resident Debbie Gordon starts thinking about bridging the gap -- the gap between the north and south parts of Keswick left by the Maskinonge River.

For close to a decade, the local environmentalist has been calling on the town to build a pedestrian bridge over the river connecting trail ends off Riverglen and Riveredge drives.

“The missing link is the bridge,” said Gordon, who started the Keswick Trail Pedestrian Bridge group on Facebook.

In the winter, students from the nearby high school and elementary school try to cross over the frozen river, instead of venturing further west to walk along The Queensway -- a busy, two-lane collector road travelling through the heart of uptown Keswick.

“No kid is going to tell their parents they cut through there,” said Gordon, referring to the frozen river.

It was around this time in 2011 when Gordon received a call from the local marina saying two students fell through a hole in the ice.

That started a conversation with town officials of the time. Various master plans were completed confirming the need for a bridge, and the town also completed an $87,000 environmental assessment and set funding aside to build a bridge that was to be funded through the federal gas tax credit.

Incidents of people falling through the ice could be on the rise as Environment Canada is predicting above average temperatures along with above average precipitation around the Lake Simcoe area.

The warmer temperature and increased snowfall could make for dicey ice conditions over the lake and rivers.
According to a recent York University study that examined 30 years of winter weather data from 10 countries, as water temperature increases lake ice is more unstable, and more people are falling through the ice and drowning.

Canada has one of the highest rates of winter drownings.

The risk of drowning is greatest at the beginning and end of winter when ice is the weakest, said lead study researcher, Sapna Sharma, an associate science professor with York U.

The study looked at who was drowning, when and what type of activities they were doing at the time.

According to the study, almost 50 per cent of drowning victims were children younger than nine playing on the ice. The majority of victims drowning in vehicles such as snowmobiles were younger than 24.

“The climate is changing and it’s affecting when you can be on the ice safely. Individuals need to take that into account, especially this winter when more individuals will be out enjoying winter ice activities,” Sharma said in a statement. “Winters are among the fastest warming season.”

Gordon sees this each year and questions what it will take to get the town moving on the pedestrian bridge.

“After the first couple days of a cold snap, when the ice is still not good, I can see footprints over the river,” Gordon said. “It’s a well-travelled area.”

And as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, forcing many residents outside and using the town’s trails, bridging the frozen river gap is all the more important, she added.

But the town is facing hurdles in getting the pedestrian bridge project underfoot -- namely securing the privately owned land on the north side of the river and a lack of funding sources, said Georgina’s communications manager, Tanya Thompson, in an email.

With passive recreation at the top of mind for governments, now is the time to capitalize on streamlined COVID-19 infrastructure funding, argued Gordon. Not to mention, there are naming sponsorship opportunities, she added.

“I’m worried the bridge will be left behind,” Gordon said. “Kids are always going back and forth on the river.”

Based on a 2013 staff report, the bridge was comparable to similar pedestrian bridges in Bayview and Richmond parks and the pedestrian bridge connecting Old Homestead/Station roads and Pete’s Lane in Pefferlaw and would cost about $1.2 million.

But those studies and the environmental assessment are sitting on a shelf collecting dust in the closed Civic Centre somewhere, Gordon said.

Now, the bridge is a $500,000 place holder in the town’s budget, set to expire at the end of 2021.