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

Northern Light said:
At any rate, the income of area residents is irrelevant to whether there are better uses for the land currently occupied by the airport.
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It is entirely relevant when a subset of those residents are advocating for policies that hurt others who are worse off.
 
Northern Light said:
You mean all the lower-income people flying Porter?

:rolleyes:
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I could pretend to understand what you're getting at. But tackling one fallacy after another is boring.

It's really simple. And I've said it before. Want to get rid of the airport? Build the alternative. A toy train to Pearson ain't it.
 
kEiThZ said:
More to the point, it becomes really offensive to argue for their benefit at the expense of actually disadvantaged socioeconomic groups. This is where this place has a real champagne socialist bent to it. And also a blind spot to why those poors keep electing folks like the Fords. Treating them as disposable tends to engender resistance.
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And the airport is somehow less bourgeois than young single professionals living downtown? The lower middle class family doesn't fly much at all, less have a season pass for Porter.
 
kEiThZ said:
I could pretend to understand what you're getting at. But tackling one fallacy after another is boring.

It's really simple. And I've said it before. Want to get rid of the airport? Build the alternative. A toy train to Pearson ain't it.
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Alternative for who? The tiny group that makes extensive use of the airport? That sounds like building parking garages at Sheppard/McCowan because Scarberians don't want to take the bus.
 
afransen said:
And the airport is somehow less bourgeois than young single professionals living downtown? The lower middle class family doesn't fly much at all, less have a season pass for Porter.
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of course they do... elites like yourself ignoring the massive working-class demand for *checks notes* downtown-to-downtown air travel is why Doug Ford was elected

smh
 
NY99 said:
of course they do... elites like yourself ignoring the massive working-class demand for *checks notes* downtown-to-downtown air travel is why Doug Ford was elected

smh
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No. Folks like the Fords get elected because champagne socialists talk a lot about how much they care about the poors until it becomes convenient to dump on them.

In this case, literally with more pollution from above.
 
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afransen said:
And the airport is somehow less bourgeois than young single professionals living downtown? The lower middle class family doesn't fly much at all, less have a season pass for Porter.
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You seem to have missed my point (or are purposely misconstruing it). I have never suggested the airport is somehow "less bourgeois". What I suggested was that it's pretty hypocritical to suggest you care about all those poor immigrants in Rexdale and Malton while literally pursuing policies that will make some of the most polluted places in the city see worse pollution.

You'll see elsewhere that I am supportive of closure when the alternatives are built. What I'm opposed to is unilateral closure that doesn't get rid of air traffic and just displaces it to neighborhoods that can't fight it. I don't like dumping my garbage in my neighbour's yard.
 
kEiThZ said:
You seem to have missed my point (or are purposely misconstruing it). I have never suggested the airport is somehow "less bourgeois". What I suggested was that it's pretty hypocritical to suggest you care about all those poor immigrants in Rexdale and Malton while literally pursuing policies that will make some of the most polluted places in the city see worse pollution.

You'll see elsewhere that I am supportive of closure when the alternatives are built. What I'm opposed to is unilateral closure that doesn't get rid of air traffic and just displaces it to neighborhoods that can't fight it. I don't like dumping my garbage in my neighbour's yard.
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the passenger traffic for Pearson is well over an order of magnitude higher than that of Billy Bishop. Transferring all traffic from the latter to the former would equate to a couple years’ growth at most, no? Are you also calling for limits on Pearson’s ability to expand?

further, only a couple approaches at Pearson directly affect those neighbourhoods. Surely the remaining approaches could pick up the slack for any new air traffic?

(tbh I don’t know anywhere near enough about Pearson to comment authoritatively on this, happy to be enlightened if what I said was misguided)

PS: i did misconstrue your point in my previous comment. Was unintentional, apologies
 
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afransen said:
Alternative for who? The tiny group that makes extensive use of the airport? That sounds like building parking garages at Sheppard/McCowan because Scarberians don't want to take the bus.
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That's not because Scarberians don't want to take the bus. That's because the residents of Markham, Pickering, Ajax don't want to take the bus. By the way, that's the reason that parking garage will not be built, even though it would make sense for cutting the emission. The local councillors / MPPs elected in Scarborough do not depend on those outside drivers as voters, and will just go with the modern fashion.

Back to Billy Bishop: the narrative that the airport exists exclusively for rich executives is definitely wrong. Porter often had competitive prices, and Porter isn't the only airline operating off Billy Bishop, Air Canada flew off that airport too. The existence of that airport is a convenience for air travellers of any income level (of course if they can afford to fly at all, but that applies to Pearson equally) living in downtown or in the adjacent areas.

If the majority of locals do not value that convenience, and prefer this airport to be closed, I have no objection to that. Who am I to tell them how they should use their land; I live very far from Billy Bishop. And, I do not see this airport as an utility of federal or provincial importance. It is primarily for the locals, everyone else can use Pearson or other big airports. However, the decision to close, if at all, has to be based on the actual wishes of the locals. Not imposed by the small but verbal fraction acting from the ideological position.
 
Rainforest said:
Back to Billy Bishop: the narrative that the airport exists exclusively for rich executives is definitely wrong. Porter often had competitive prices, and Porter isn't the only airline operating off Billy Bishop, Air Canada flew off that airport too. The existence of that airport is a convenience for air travellers of any income level (of course if they can afford to fly at all, but that applies to Pearson equally) living in downtown or in the adjacent areas.
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Yep. I live near Pearson, but i have flown Porter out of Billy Bishop a lot over the years, because Air Canada flights out of Person were ridiculously expensive. It's nice to have a nearby alternative.
 
Airfares on Toronto-Ottawa and Toronto-Montreal are substantially competitive because of Porter and YTZ. And that has economic implications both regionally and nationally. The only real substitute for that effect is rail service that is actually competitive with air. HSR.
 
Rainforest said:
Back to Billy Bishop: the narrative that the airport exists exclusively for rich executives is definitely wrong. Porter often had competitive prices, and Porter isn't the only airline operating off Billy Bishop, Air Canada flew off that airport too. The existence of that airport is a convenience for air travellers of any income level (of course if they can afford to fly at all, but that applies to Pearson equally) living in downtown or in the adjacent areas.
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This. I rent near to Wilson Station and am under the medium income for Toronto and still head downtown to take Porter.
 
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