Toronto Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport | ?m | ?s | Ports Toronto | Arup

innsertnamehere said:
.... surely that is a joke?
Click to expand...

Not to the person proposing it at the time (mid 40's?).


Edit: Search by image is my friend. Evidently there was one proposed for London too.

http://untappedcities.com/2013/06/2...hat-never-was-midtowns-dream-rooftop-airport/

"The 990-acre Manhattan Airport was the brainchild of real-estate mogul William Zeckendorf, who also owned the Chrysler Building and Astor Hotel. According to a 1946 LIFE article (via Ptak Science), Zeckendorf’s $3 billion project–an astronomical sum today, let alone in the 1940′s–would have stretched 144 blocks from 24th to 71st Streets and 9th Ave to the Hudson River at 200 feet above street level."
 
Last edited:
rbt said:
Not to the person proposing it at the time (mid 40's?).


Edit: Search by image is my friend. Evidently there was one proposed for London too.

http://untappedcities.com/2013/06/2...hat-never-was-midtowns-dream-rooftop-airport/

"The 990-acre Manhattan Airport was the brainchild of real-estate mogul William Zeckendorf, who also owned the Chrysler Building and Astor Hotel. According to a 1946 LIFE article (via Ptak Science), Zeckendorf’s $3 billion project–an astronomical sum today, let alone in the 1940′s–would have stretched 144 blocks from 24th to 71st Streets and 9th Ave to the Hudson River at 200 feet above street level."
Click to expand...

And this is comparable to the current Island airport plan....how?
 
If there was no airport on that piece of land (where Billy Bishop is), the last thing we would do with it today is to turn it into one. It's just not an intelligent or efficient use of our resources.

Toronto's waterfront is quickly becoming one of the most densely populated areas in North America, and this trend is set to continue for quite some time. Instead of choking its hundreds of thousands of inhabitants with the carcinogenic externalities of jet fuels, car exhaust, and diesel contaminants, we should be trying to electrify our trains, remove or bury the Gardiner, and move the airport elsewhere.

Expanding the airport is irresponsible from a planning perspective, from a public health perspective, from an environmental perspective, and from an economic perspective. We can do with maintaining it as is for a while longer as we start fixing other more urgent problems in our city, but we shouldn't be making our future problems worse.
 
RC8 said:
Toronto's waterfront is quickly becoming one of the most densely populated areas in North America
Click to expand...

I seriously have to question this. Waterfront....densely populated? Um, where? Right now, there's barely anything on the waterfront, so I don't know what waterfront you are referring to.
 
RC8 said:
If there was no airport on that piece of land (where Billy Bishop is), the last thing we would do with it today is to turn it into one. It's just not an intelligent or efficient use of our resources.

Toronto's waterfront is quickly becoming one of the most densely populated areas in North America, and this trend is set to continue for quite some time. Instead of choking its hundreds of thousands of inhabitants with the carcinogenic externalities of jet fuels, car exhaust, and diesel contaminants, we should be trying to electrify our trains, remove or bury the Gardiner, and move the airport elsewhere.

Expanding the airport is irresponsible from a planning perspective, from a public health perspective, from an environmental perspective, and from an economic perspective. We can do with maintaining it as is for a while longer as we start fixing other more urgent problems in our city, but we shouldn't be making our future problems worse.
Click to expand...

Sure, we wouldn't be building an airport there now, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't expand the current one.

There is a major difference between ripping down half the city and building a gigantic platform 200 feet tall, and adding 200 meters on each end of the runway.

explain how it is negative economically? my understanding is that the city report states it has a positive economic effect?

also burying the Gardiner doesn't get rid of the pollutants, they just get ventilated up to the surface.
 
Last edited:
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
I seriously have to question this. Waterfront....densely populated? Um, where? Right now, there's barely anything on the waterfront, so I don't know what waterfront you are referring to.
Click to expand...

There's currently ~27,000 households living in the central waterfront today. That number may even double in the next couple of decades.

For comparisons' sake, all of Doug Ford's Ward 2, at about 10 times the size of the central waterfront area considered above (and next to Pearson), has less than 20,000 households in total.
 
RC8 said:
There's currently ~27,000 households living in the central waterfront today. That number may even double in the next couple of decades.

For comparisons' sake, all of Doug Ford's Ward 2, at about 10 times the size of the central waterfront area considered above (and next to Pearson), has less than 20,000 households in total.
Click to expand...

Why not compare to other cities/city regions in North America. Which is what your initial post stated "... becoming one of the most densely populated areas in North America ...". Is the waterfront becoming more dense than Manhattan, or parts of LA, or parts of Chicago?
 
innsertnamehere said:
explain how it is negative economically? my understanding is that the city report states it has a positive economic effect?

also burying the Gardiner doesn't get rid of the pollutants, they just get ventilated up to the surface.
Click to expand...

Obviously the NY example is an order of magnitude or two crazier than what we have here, but the overall ridiculousness of using prime downtown waterfont land for an airport that could go anywhere else remains relevant.

I don't have time to get into the economics, but basically if you carry out analyses that incorporate externalities and also consider alternative uses for the airport lands, you'd find that further cementing the airport's position in the waterfront is counter-productive in the medium run.

Exhaust could be easily filtered before being released above a hypothetically buried Gardiner. They are doing this in Chile, so I don't see why we can't do it here. Preliminary research indicates we may even be able to re-capture substantial amounts of CO2 before they are released into the atmosphere this way!
 
using voo-doo economics I too can determine that anything has a negative economic effect. We live in reality, and the cities economic report does too, unlike " incorporating externalities and also considering alternative uses for the airport lands".

also important to note that the same report states that the expansion will have a positive effect on marine life. It made quite a few NoJetsTO supporters at the consultations quite upset when they were told that, quite a few walked out of the room mumbling profanities at the planner.
 
Last edited:
'My' (they're not mine at all) economics are only as 'voo-doo' as the ones that led to the end of coal power generation in this province. Not to mention that, in this particular case, the likes of Paul Bedford and Jennifer Keesmaat agree with them.

Also important to note is that these city reports are heavily influenced by Lobbyists in their scope. I remember dissecting the methodologies of the casino report back in the day and they were unjustifiable.
 
Last edited:
Because Porter just has sooo much influence over city Bureaucrats. Nope.

And the difference between ending Coal generation (and sending out roughly 30% of Ontarios pollutants with it) and a few jets landing that would land elsewhere anyway ( you yourself have stated this) is rather large.

I have the utmost respect for Bedford and Keesmaat, but they are planners, and likely have little experience with economics past one or two courses they took in university 20 years ago.
 
And yet 10 years ago the idea of getting rid of coal was thought of as unthinkable economic suicide.

Whether the jets land here or in a less populated, less valuable, and less ecologically significant place is exactly the point. The externalities are not the same here than if they were landing at Pearson or in Pickering, not even close. As you yourself recognised, if these lands were not currently an airport that's the last thing we'd do with them. It would be outrageous from a public health perspective alone.

P.S. Have you met any lobbyists at City Hall? They have scary stories to share.
 
well the coal plants kinda were economic suicide to a certain extent, combo that with Hydro privitization and you get our stupidly high hydro rates.
 
innsertnamehere said:
using voo-doo economics I too can determine that anything has a negative economic effect. We live in reality, and the cities economic report does too, unlike " incorporating externalities and also considering alternative uses for the airport lands".

also important to note that the same report states that the expansion will have a positive effect on marine life. It made quite a few NoJetsTO supporters at the consultations quite upset when they were told that, quite a few walked out of the room mumbling profanities at the planner.
Click to expand...

I have heard this a few times (the bolded part) and each time I have to ask...what are those alternative uses? As far as I can tell, the only alternative use is parkland....now that might be a good idea but as part of an economic answer it does not produce more than, either, the current airport or an expanded one.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top