That doesn't sit well with Rudy Leyk, a Scarborough man who likes to walk through Bluffers Park with his daughter and calls the new summer fees a cash grab.
In addition to its $6 daily maximum on weekends and holidays, the city has started charging 75 cents a half-hour or a $3 maximum from 5 to 9 p.m. on weekdays.
That may not sound like much, but Leyk calls it a "kick in the can for ordinary folks" who go to the waterfront because they can't leave the city during summer.
"Most people have to escape and that's the only escape they've got," he said last week.
Though she said the $3 is "not a bank account breaker," Ward 32 Councillor (Beaches-East York) Sandra Bussin doesn't agree with the city strategy for paid parking either.
"If they weren't going to put it in Edwards Gardens, they shouldn't put it in my areas either," she said.
The city first introduced paid parking at Ashbridges Bay in 2002. As a budget committee member a few years ago, Bussin managed to get paid parking at waterfront parks removed, but Bussin is now off the committee and fees have been reinstated.
This year, the city decided it had to raise $300,000 more in parking revenue. It was thought expanding charges at waterfront parks "would be an easier pill to swallow" than charging for parking at Edwards Gardens and other regional parks, said Doug McDonald, manager of business services for the parks department.
When the city started talking about charging for parking at Edwards Gardens and other "garden parks" some of their regular users "hit the roof," McDonald said last week.
The parking charges are only from May to September, the solar-powered ticket dispensers removed for the winter. The city has considered charging year-round but thinks the revenue may not be worth it, said McDonald.
Parking for the extensive waterfront trail in Scarborough is still free because the city, at least officially, has not provided any parking spaces to reach it.
McDonald said the weekday fees could actually ease problems at Bluffers, which has a public beach at the foot of Brimley Road and is a draw for special events but has sometimes run out of parking spaces in the past.
"Bluffers has always been a parking nightmare, especially on weekends," said McDonald, adding he remembers days when cars were being turned away at the top of the hill leading to the park because there was no parking at the bottom.
But unlike Woodbine Beach, which is now at the end of a newly completed bus loop, Bluffer's has no TTC service. Anyone not coming by car must walk down a long, steep road with irregular shoulders and overhanging branches.
Leyk said he fears this could lead to tragedy if more people walk down to the beach to avoid paying to park. "Somebody's going to get killed on that road."
McDonald said he would speak to the city's transportation department about conditions on the road to Bluffers.