Kew-Balmy Beach, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Kew-Balmy Beach is east of downtown Toronto, a half-hour by private car or one hour by public transit. Kew-Balmy is just to the east of its larger sister beach, Woodbine. The Kew-Balmy Beach experience defines a classic day at the beach, featuring a quiet, pristine shoreline; boardwalk and trails, beach house, and a food truck.

A car ride or taxi trip may get a shoreline-seeker to Kew-Balmy Beach in half the time of public transit, but the public-transit route costs much less than the taxi trip and removes uncertainty over scarce parking. A one-hour transit trip from downtown Toronto to its eastern shores stops within a one-block stroll to the beach.

The trip from Osgoode Station began at 9:30 am and ended at the intersection of Queen Street East and Wineva Avenue at 11 am. A TTC staffer said to take the eastbound 501B replacement bus to the corner of Queen Street East and Parliament and then get the 501D eastbound streetcar to Wineva. “Buses are easier to re-route than streetcars,” he said.

The price of an all-day Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) ticket is $13.50, and leads to this timeless beach vista. Construction in downtown Toronto may necessitate transfers between buses and streetcars, whereas in summers past the streetcar traversed the entire route. The 501D route runs both ways early and late, but the transfer situation can change during the day.

Kew-Balmy Beach, at 1 Beech Avenue, offers a tremendous view of Lake Ontario. This beach is part of the fun Beach neighborhood that runs south of Queen Street East. The Kew-Balmy shoreline stretches between Lee and Silver Birch avenues. East of Silver Birch Avenue are the Silver Birch Dog Park, Beach, Viewpoint, and the scenic grounds of the R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant.

The weather at Kew-Balmy Beach will be variable for Wednesday, July 3, 2024. Beach-goers will see partly sunny skies with a high temperature of 29 C (84 F) today. At 11:30 am, current temperatures are 27 C (81 F) with winds of 32 kph (20 mph) and humidity of 62 percent. The wind is expected to pick up mid-afternoon with clouds rolling in.

This beach is open seven days a week, year-round, from 9 am until 8 pm. Public washrooms are located to the east past the Balmy Beach Club toward Silver Birch Avenue. Better, more accessible washrooms are located to the west toward the covered pavilion and the grounds of the Kew Beach Lawn Bowling Club just east of Lee Avenue.

The sand at Kew-Balmy Beach is more coarse than the sand at neighboring Woodbine Beach. Shown here in this image is this coarse sand, plus a rocky groyne in the near distance. These groynes line the beach and are designed to prevent erosion along the shoreline. The area shown is swimmable, marked by the buoy.

Kew-Balmy Beach has the prestigious Blue Flag certification, which means that it has high water quality, safety, accessibility, and cleanliness standards. Blue Flag International is operated by the Foundation for Environmental Education based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Kew-Balmy Beach has been Blue Flag certified since 2009.

Go ahead and call that Toronto Beach Water Quality Hotline. The recording is about two minutes, and as of this writing on July 30, 2024, water quality had been sampled on July 29 and found to be safe for swimming. E. coli bacteria levels at nearby Centre Island, however, were deemed not safe for swimming but the beach itself was still open.

Safety is an important part of the Blue Flag program. Like nearby Woodbine Beach, Kew-Balmy Beach has lifeguards posted from 10:30 to 7:30. Lifeguards along the waterfront, according to a City of Toronto website, must be at least 16 years old and have many qualifications. These qualifications include National Lifeguard certification, watercraft operation, CPR, and Child Development. Training is on-going.

Lifeguards communicate information about swimming conditions via flags. A green flag means good conditions with little wave activity and off-shore wind. The yellow flag means that there are strong waves and wind or light fog. A red flag means that conditions are unsafe for swimming, with strong waves, high winds, fog, and poor water quality. The swimming area itself is marked by red-over-yellow flags.

Toronto has a walkable waterfront, with the Boardwalk shown here. The Boardwalk runs from Woodbine Beach in the west to terminate at Silver Birch Off Leash Dog Park in the east, where it becomes the rustic Lake Front Trail. This trail in turn terminates at the intersection of the water treatment plant and Nursewood Road.

Beside the Boardwalk is the two-lane Martin Goodman Trail, which is paved and stretches from the Woodbine Beach West Dock peninsula to the Silver Birch dog park. The Martin Goodman Trail then merges with the Boardwalk into the rustic Lake Front Trail, which terminates at the confluence of Nursewood Road and the water treatment plant. Also, it’s time for lunch and the Beaches ’N Cream food truck is right here.

The Beaches ’N Cream food truck is located at the public washroom along the Martin Goodman Trail, near the Kew Gardens Lawn Bowling green. The washrooms are accessible. The washrooms were in dire need of cleaning, but were well-stocked with an accessible stall. There were men’s and women’s washroom, but a family washroom was not evident. Both washrooms have child change tables.

The best way to begin a visit to Kew-Balmy Beach is to visit the Toronto parks-and-rec centre map online at Toronto.ca. There is a map for Kew Gardens, which this is, with the address of 2075 Queen Street East in the district of Toronto and East York. This facility is listed as the Kew Beach Lawn Bowling Club Washroom at Toronto.ca, between the Trail and the Boardwalk. Toronto.ca lists operating hours and any closures.

Daily washroom hours from May through October are from 9 am until 10 pm, and from November through April from 9 am until 8 pm. Washrooms are winterized for cold-weather usage. Kew Beach is one of 114 out of 346 washrooms that have automatic door openers for enhanced accessibility. Toronto.ca also lists locations for drinking fountains, bottle filling stations, and portable amenities.

Beaches ’N Cream offers two hotdogs and one sausage dog at its food truck, which are $7 and $8 respectively. These are the three most reasonably priced sandwiches here. The beef hotdog, shown here, was hot and juicy. The other hotdog is the veggie dog, also at $7. Free toppings, which the attendant will put on for the dining guest, are ketchup, mustard, relish, pickles, and hot banana peppers.

The poutine was hot, fresh, ample, and served with a smile at $14.25, plus tax. Napkins and utensils are supplied; the fork is fabricated from birchwood and broke quickly. (The editor of this blog carries a few plastic utensils in her backpack to use just in case.) The prices at this food truck are high but this is a tourist area and the food and service here were very good. A bottle of ice-cold Kirkland water is $5 plus tax.

The chicken gyro is $15.50 and was hot and fresh. The food is made to order and the food truck attendant gives the diner a pager that buzzes when the food is ready at the pick-up counter on the right of the truck. Tax is ten percent. The Kew Beach facility itself has a well-appointed ice cream, pastry, and coffee shop, that also sells soft drinks and mixed beverages. A delicious soft-serve twist cone was $6.50 plus tax and tip.

What began as a sunny, promising day with light winds turned into a blustery, overcast, and chilly afternoon by 2 pm. Clouds covered the entire lakeshore area. Shown here is the Kew Gardens Older Adult Drop-In, featuring line dancing and bingo. This city-sponsored programming drew many participants in a building that resembles the style of the Leuty Lifeguard station back at the beach.

Kew Gardens has a city-owned cenotaph monument dedicated to its veterans, and Kew-Balmy Beach has a plaque dedicated to its landmark Leuty Lifeguard Station. The Leuty Lifeguard Station was built in 1920 but fell into disrepair. After local fundraising efforts, the station was saved. The Leuty Station is just one of two buildings like this still in use on the city shoreline; the other is at Cherry Beach.

Conditions at Kew-Balmy Beach change markedly between this morning and this afternoon, but the Green flag still flies on the lifeguard chairs. Leuty Avenue is just to the north of here. This structure was first called the Scarborough Beach Station when built by the Toronto Harbour Commission in 1920. The Leuty name may have come from Emma Mary Leuty, who married land developer Walter Sutherland Lee in 1859.

Google Maps lists Leuty Lifeguard Station as a photo spot. This clapboard station was almost lost to the vicissitudes of Lake Ontario wind and weather, but the city of Toronto spent $200,000 in 2017 to place it on pilings thus raising it from the ground. Armor stone was added too. A deck and a small dock were constructed at that time as well. This image shows a close-up of one of the groynes that protects the beach.

At 2:30 pm, the sun is nowhere to be found after a beautiful morning; this is typical for conditions on capricious Great Lakes beaches. While Toronto swimming beaches have robust lifeguarding, swimming outside of lifeguard hours is not recommended. Lifeguard hours from June to early August are from 10:30 am until 7:30 pm, and from mid-August through September those hours are from 10 am until 7 pm.

The large, white tarp with the green-cross roundel on the lifeguard chair indicates that lifeguards are on duty. Lifeguards wear their unmistakable red-and-yellow uniforms while on duty. The flags they post convey important information. Another source of information is the large bulletin board erected near the Canadian flag pole. The bulletin board has a good map with listed amenities plus information about the local environment.

Kew-Balmy Beach is nearly empty at 2:45 pm and rain is expected soon. The drop between the Boardwalk shown here and the beach is steep, so using a mini-ramp is recommended. The beaches are groomed, which reduces biting sand fleas. There are no mayflies here, as on Lake Erie beaches. The Boardwalk and Martin Goodman Trail provide a convenient pathway back up to transit on Queen Street East.

The TTC streetcar stop is close by. A paved, level walkway crosses the Boardwalk and the Martin Goodman Trail and rolls past an ice rink. The walkway heads northward through Kew Gardens and goes past the baseball field, the children’s play area, and then the Veterans cenotaph. The path then leads directly to the bus and streetcar stop at Queen Street East and Bellefair Avenue to head back to downtown Toronto.