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

salsa said:
And how long does that take in this city?

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Also, it takes around 20 minutes to get to union from the island airport. So you save a whopping 5 minutes by taking a crowded streetcar rather than a comfortable express train.
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less than it will take to go from Oakville to downtown to the airport by train, or from pickering to downtown to the airport (if they are willing to pay $15 for the UPX, they will be willing to pay $15 to use the 407), or from Vaughan to the airport, or from... etc, etc, etc.
 
RC8 said:
A lot of that is beyond the scope of the project and for good reason, it is not that significant given how localised a lot of the environmental impacts of these developments are (dose makes the poison, and in this case it's all about proximity). Also, induced demand is a thing for airplanes just as it is for other modes of transportation, so the cheaper and more accessible you make flying the more people will opt to do so. You cannot make the assumption that the same number of people will fly either way.

In any case... in the medium term GO rail and the Pearson Rail Link should be electrified, which means that the amount of emissions released into the neighbourhood from people travelling to the airport by rail will be minimal. People who were going to walk or take transit to the island airport will be within walking distance of an electric rail connection to Pearson, so no extra cars on that equation.

People from the rest of the city heading to Pearson in cars will be heading to an airport in a very low-density area mostly through other low-density areas rather than through Toronto's most populated neighbourhoods.
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40% of Porter's 2.5M customers (1 million or 5,000 every working day) are business travellers. Most will be coming/going from downtown (if they live in the suburbs they will use Pearson). Add some residential traffic, remove some business traffic and use the 40% from downtown as a guesstimate. Just using the current mix (and currently approved EA's which excludes electrification) this will have a direct impact on the waterfront community of more diesel train trips and more limos (which often do not have a return ride due to the taxi rules in Toronto/Mississauga).

And looking at the cost structure of Porter/Air Canada, there is very little profit in air travel. Other than to rarely served area's Porter's goal is not to drive down the cost but to be at the same price as Air Canada. So growth is not driven by price.

As for accessibility, we are a financial hub and want to continue to grow as one. Based on the Places to Grow Act, we know Toronto will grow in population and jobs. Public Health's head in the sand mentality will not change this and downtown travellers will be using Pearson or the Island for future growth of air travel.

For new demand, Pearson is spending billions on future growth strategies which are being deferred due to the Island Airport growth. And I wonder how quickly Pickering would be build without the Island which will remove agricultural land forever.
 
RC8 said:
You can find up-to-date specific readings from the waterfront showing very high levels of air pollution, especially near the airport.

Even with the lake, looking at density figures, it's pretty clear there's many more people near Billy Bishop. Most of those buildings you see near the airport are full of goods, not people. Sprawl is very deceiving.
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I think I have come up with a better solution! We have a huge low-density area of Toronto a few minutes away from the currently Island Airport that is owned by the City with very low density surrounding it...Ward's Island. Let's expropriate the land (...wait, the City owns it...kick the residents off) and voila, a "made-in-Toronto" solution. The current airport can be converted to a park available for all residents (unlike Ward Island which is used by a few).

[kidding...keep the island airport where it is]
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
I'm sure any board of health would recommend closing a local airport and building one further away (e.g. Pickering); it doesn't make it a good idea.

Shifting flights to further away airports does nothing to help the environment or health.
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You don't expect the Toronto Board of Health to care about residents outside Toronto do you?

Heck, they don't even care about all the residents of Toronto. More and larger planes over Malton, Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough (with Pickering Airport plan)? No problem. A handful of the most efficient passenger aircraft available today (with fuel burn rates per passenger on par with a Prius)? Huge problem!

This is the double standard I don't get. Even Union-Pearson Express does not solve it. It simply shifts air traffic from the Island to Pearson. And eventually Pickering. But this is the truth of it. The closure of the Island will most definitely result in the construction of Pickering. And that's a much bigger hit in greenspace lost for the region than YTZ.

Airports are vital infrastructure. And air hubs are vastly important to any world class city. Everyone on this board loves London. How many airports does London have? Or how about the New York area? And looking at New York, while the airports are slightly further away, they handle much, much larger aircraft with substantially lower environmental standards than YTZ ever would. And yet you don't see proposals to shift all the airports to burbs on Long Island or to New Jersey.

I think it's time to recognize that Porter and YTZ are here to stay and to work with them. Get rid of GA from the Island. And make the Island a commercial airport. But give them only slight more slots per day....increase to 225 slots maybe? That's one departure every 4 minutes during working hours. But with the removal of GA you'd lose touch and gos every minute on YTZ. Work with the airport on managing traffic in the area. Perhaps they need a parking structure of some sort for the taxis and the short-term waits? Maybe a taxi tunnel from Queen's Quay, so that residents don't have to deal with a bunch of idling taxis on Eireann Quay. I'm sure something can be worked out.

RC8 is right that Porter's proposal will burn more fuel. But context is important. Drivers sitting in rush hour traffic on the Gardiner with average occupancy of 1.15 per car cause substantially more pollution than Porter's aircraft. I don't see proposals to stop them. Indeed, the plan now is to demolish the Gardiner and have even more idling traffic.
 
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picard102 said:
So it does come down to nimby. Thanks for confirming.
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Mostly does. I live in the area. I have not once, ever, heard any other resident in my condo complain about the airport. Ever. Seriously. Not once. Indeed, we sometimes chat up Porter employees we meet in the area. Or at at the streetcar stop or whatever. Instead of it being a negative, condo marketers now even trump accessibility of the airport. You can be in Montreal in 2 hours and Manhattan in less than 3 hours from your front door.

I think there's a small core of NIMBYs. Who really need something to pick on. Probably the same bunch who originally opposed the downtown subway because it would bring more development to the core.


Personally, I have no issues with removing YTZ, if there is some rational and reasonable debate on the airport. And that's got to include discussion on all the impacts. Like increased traffic at Pearson. Significant development in Pickering (which right now isn't going to be more than a small GA airport in the beginning). Etc. And that discussion should also include some talk about the residents of the Island. All this talk about evicting a private business because it's a public space (though said business is used by a multitude of the city's residents) and no talk at all about the private dwellings on public land right next door. I don't see the point of evicting the airport to build more condos. If they want to turn the entire thing into a park? Sure. But then, the entire thing should be a park. My tax dollars should not be going to subsidize the lifestyle of the Islanders. At least the airport has finally started paying for itself.
 
I simply do not agree with building Pickering at all. Why are we paving our farmland for a new airport? Expand existing airports, don't build a new one!

Don't people on this board care about the environment?

Oh I guess it IS URBANtoronto.ca
 
Pickering as a passenger airport doesn't make sense at all, and won't for a long long while. what it does make sense for is a freight airport to take the pressure off of Pearson (allowing more passenger movements) as well as general aviation which after the closure of Buttonville is being forced out to locations like Greenbank.
 
Perhaps folks here know better, but why isn't Oshawa airport expanded for freight purposes? At a quick Google maps glance the airport doesn't seem to be constrained by much development and the runways have room to expand. There is a large manufacturing base in Durham and Oshawa seems well positioned to serves it.
 
Oshawa's runway is rather short, its only really good for general aviation. its the same length as Billy Bishops currently. Hamilton is a fairly large Freight airport however.
 
no but there isn't any demand for it, it's too far away. Hamilton council is quite frustrated with it as they really want passenger service to take off from it.
 
innsertnamehere said:
no but there isn't any demand for it, it's too far away. Hamilton council is quite frustrated with it as they really want passenger service to take off from it.
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I think Hamilton suffers from the same issue that will haunt any Pickering airport with regards to passenger service. It does not offer any significant value proposition over Pearson to offset the loss of connections that result from flying to/from a secondary airport. Like Pearson and Pickering, it is a suburban airport built far out from the major market it serves. Why would any airline relocate their service to there? Many have tried and pulled back.

To bring this back to a the YTZ discussion, I think that is the difference between YTZ and, either, Pickering or Hamilton as a Toronto second passenger airport. There is a significant difference to the flying public and, therefore, the airports that want to serve them.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Oshawa's runway is rather short, its only really good for general aviation. its the same length as Billy Bishops currently. Hamilton is a fairly large Freight airport however.
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Why not expand Oshawa's runways and reporpose its grounds a a frieght and passenger terminal then if there is so much pent up eastern demand for freight and passengers. I would suspect that represents a better use of federal dollars than building an airport which will probably fail. And yah Hamilton suffers from Mirabel syndrome which is strange considering its location in the middle of the golden horseshoe with manufacturing and other freight relevant industries basically on all sides and its relatively large population base which could support it.

Back to YTZ though. I has a place as a regional airport in its current configuration and that is how it should stay.
 
mrxbombastic said:
Why not expand Oshawa's runways and reporpose its grounds a a frieght and passenger terminal then if there is so much pent up eastern demand for freight and passengers. I would suspect that represents a better use of federal dollars than building an airport which will probably fail. And yah Hamilton suffers from Mirabel syndrome which is strange considering its location in the middle of the golden horseshoe with manufacturing and other freight relevant industries basically on all sides and its relatively large population base which could support it.

Back to YTZ though. I has a place as a regional airport in its current configuration and that is how it should stay.
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Can't be sure, but that post can be read as "let's expand the airport that is bordered on 3 sides by residential neighborhoods but don't expand the other that has residential on one side" ;)
 
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