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voxpopulicosmicum said:
Those of us who do not mastubate to Aviation Weekly and Esprit de Corps can still have legitimate concerns about the TPA and public policy.
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Really any need to resort to such offensive language?

With respect to your questions. Your answer to them is your opinion. I doubt that you'll find a plurality of voters in this city would agree with you. If you start with the opinion that any growth of the airport is bad, then surely anything the TPA does will be poor policy or unethical, etc. But public interest consists of far more than the narrow interests of those who own condos near the airport.

And I'd suggest that you are quite wrong in thinking that they don't have a mandate to grow revenue. I'm sure there's at least a few overseers of the TPA in Ottawa that probably disagree with you on that one. This is like arguing the City doesn't need to maximize revenue from renting out spaces because it's about good public policy. I'm sure you'd find quite a few who'd argue that it's in the taxpayers' interest for revenue to be maximized.
 
kEiThZ said:
And I'd suggest that you are quite wrong in thinking that they don't have a mandate to grow revenue. I'm sure there's at least a few overseers of the TPA in Ottawa that probably disagree with you on that one. This is like arguing the City doesn't need to maximize revenue from renting out spaces because it's about good public policy. I'm sure you'd find quite a few who'd argue that it's in the taxpayers' interest for revenue to be maximized.
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I think most people who are against the airport would have the airport land become part of the Toronto Island park system and so maximizing revenue would not be so important as park space. Looking at the issues the city is facing collecting a normal tax rate due to it being Federal land as an airport I think that there are some groups which would just be happy to see the TPA not getting a free (or subsidized) ride.
 
I think the idea of YTZ becoming a park is a complete non-starter and not even worthy of discussion. But that's just my opinion :)
 
kEiThZ said:
But public interest consists of far more than the narrow interests of those who own condos near the airport.
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Okay, but I wouldn't necessarily say that the expansion of the runway is in the public interest, either. For one, the airport expansion is only being clamoured for by one private company. And while I can understand that Porter might provide employment and generate wealth for downtown Toronto, I don't see how it does that any differently from any other privately-run service, whether it's the spa at the Shangri La or the quality of the waitstaff at Canoe. The services provided by these private enterprises also facilitate business deals that generate taxable revenue, but both you and I would think it absurd if these companies received favourable treatment from the government in any way, and we would be right.

Long story short: I'm not opposed to this expansion and I don't care about unsubstantiated claims of noise or pollution. What I'm concerned about is Porter receiving any favourable treatment from any level of government to carry out this expansion plan. Yeah, yeah, I understand that they want to use the AIF to fund the actual construction, but favourable government treatment doesn't have to involve a direct cash subsidy; it could be anything as simple as an expedited review process for the construction of the runway or providing better loan conditions than what one could get from a major commercial bank.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
I think the idea of YTZ becoming a park is a complete non-starter and not even worthy of discussion. But that's just my opinion :)
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I think we will see the island airport shut down and converted to park land the day we have 2h30m rail service between Toronto and Montreal. Place your bets now.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
I think the idea of YTZ becoming a park is a complete non-starter and not even worthy of discussion. But that's just my opinion :)
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I'm talking about the scenario of a failed airport. As long as Porter is making money there, it is a non-starter. If Porter fails for whatever reason, I don't think YTZ becoming a park is a complete non-starter.
 
Hipster Duck said:
Okay, but I wouldn't necessarily say that the expansion of the runway is in the public interest, either. For one, the airport expansion is only being clamoured for by one private company. And while I can understand that Porter might provide employment and generate wealth for downtown Toronto........
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The expansion of this airport will benefit the public enormously! It will allow Porter to develop into a national airline and introduce more competition. The public is always well served by more competition! There can be no doubt that fares - which are way too high in Canada - will go down on certain routes. How can you argue against that?

This is just one way in which the public will benefit. There are a long list of benefits which have already been discussed at length in this thread. I don't know how anyone could say that expanding the runway is not in the public's interest. Most residents of Toronto will not even notice that the runway has been lengthened. The only people who will notice any difference will be the yacht and pleasure craft owners many of whom have vacation homes on Ward and Algonquin Islands.

It seems that some people have a problem with the fact that Porter's owner Bob Deluce will gain financially from this expansion of the airport. I don't understand these sentiments. What's wrong if Bob Deluce gets richer by expanding his airline? He gambled everything on Porter Airlines and so far Porter has delivered many benefits for Toronto. Why shouldn't he be rewarded for this gamble?
 
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Automation Gallery said:
Hahaha any bets leave it to your grandsons,
the way rail development is going on in this country, it will be 100 years before that happens:D
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100 years? You're an optimist. In 100 years, Canada will be lucky to get it's passenger up to 180km/hr while the rest of the world will have built MagLev lines
 
JayBeeGooner said:
100 years? You're an optimist. In 100 years, Canada will be lucky to get it's passenger up to 180km/hr while the rest of the world will have built MagLev lines
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You & AG live in Canada, right? Only 30mn people, strung out east/west for thousands of miles? Great airport coverage of all major and many minor cities? Why would we spend any dollars on fast trains? Why lament Canada not doing something stupid?
 
Riverdale Rink Rat said:
You & AG live in Canada, right? Only 30mn people, strung out east/west for thousands of miles? Great airport coverage of all major and many minor cities? Why would we spend any dollars on fast trains? Why lament Canada not doing something stupid?
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Presumably by Canada he meant Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal. With some trains running on to St. Catharines, London, KW, and Quebec City, that would cover about 20 million people - the majority of Canadians. Densities are not that unreasonable. Very little else you could ever do in Canada, other than perhaps Edmonton to Calgary.
 
Vancouver and Seattle is a good candidate. Yeah, I am not talk about building HSR between Vancouver and Toronto. HSR is proven to be more attractive and cheaper for short-medium distances.
Paying $150 to fly one way between Toronto and Montreal is just ridiculous
 
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