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

rbt said:
Best and most consistently high winds in Ontario are about 1km (or further) off-shore. Lake Huron and Ontario should be peppered with them, and coincidentally almost nobody lives on the lake.
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But then people complain about off-shore windmills destroying their view, as if they own it.
 
Riverdale Rink Rat said:
Looks like the runway extension is dead, or at least 'dead until next Conservative majority'. I'll not be surprised if PortsToronto gets packed with Liberal supporters (as was the last go-round with Conservative supporters) and the whole complexion of the conversation around the harbour changes. I blue-skyed WT taking over planning and operations in the harbour... maybe not so fanciful now.
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While I won't jinx it by dancing on its grave, the expansion for jets at Billy Bishop may be permanently dead. The Liberals hit the ground running and still have 4 years of a majority government to make sure it doesn't get revived. One thing that's being talked about is to designate the islands and portions of the waterfront federally protected bird sanctuaries. While that could in theory be reversed by a majority Conservative government, removing federal environmental protections is usually a hot potato that no government wants to burn political capital on. Wynne could help with this by putting in place provincial environmental protections at the new Ontario Place park.

Another permanent block on expanding the airport would come in the way of height along the flight paths of types of planes that would need a longer approach (i.e. jets). Building anything taller than 20 stories in certain parts of the Portlands would permanently kill the possibility of jets landing on the island. If it becomes clear to City Council that the jet situation is dead, they could zone the Portlands for high density. Nothing that tall will get built within this term of government but zoning could be defined, making it harder to reverse given that that would involve forgoing significant development potential and property tax value.

There's also the suggestion of stacking Ports Toronto with Liberals and/or changing the nature of the federal body to answer to Waterfront Toronto or abolishing it entirely and handing management of the harbour to WT.

Finally, there's the issue that Billy Bishop has been operating under old regulations, so technically it's not safe to land/take off from that runway according to the new federal standards. The Liberal government could decide to shut the whole thing down by mandating that it follow the new rules and at the same time making it impossible to build a runway extension.

This could be over, once and for all.
 
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Voltz said:
But then people complain about off-shore windmills destroying their view, as if they own it.
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To be fair, the sight of dozens of windmills just off shore is as equally offensive as jets.

I would be in favor of a handful of them, but unfortunately that's sort of pointless in terms of actual capacity.
 
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bobbob911 said:
To be fair, the sight of dozens of windmills just off shore is as equally offensive as jets.

I would be in favor of a handful of them, but unfortunately that's sort of pointless in terms of actual capacity.
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Equally offensive? I though the problem with the airport is that you can't escape the noise even by closing your window, which would temporarily solve the windmill issue...
 
MetroMan said:
While I won't jinx it by dancing on its grave, the expansion for jets at Billy Bishop may be permanently dead. The Liberals hit the ground running and still have 4 years of a majority government to make sure it doesn't get revived. One thing that's being talked about is to designate the islands and portions of the waterfront federally protected bird sanctuaries. While that could in theory be reversed by a majority Conservative government, removing federal environmental protections is usually a hot potato that no government wants to burn political capital on. Wynne could help with this by putting in place provincial environmental protections at the new Ontario Place park.

Another permanent block on expanding the airport would come in the way of height along the flight paths of types of planes that would need a longer approach (i.e. jets). Building anything taller than 20 stories in certain parts of the Portlands would permanently kill the possibility of jets landing on the island. If it becomes clear to City Council that the jet situation is dead, they could zone the Portlands for high density. Nothing that tall will get built within this term of government but zoning could be defined, making it harder to reverse given that that would involve forgoing significant development potential and property tax value.

There's also the suggestion of stacking Ports Toronto with Liberals and/or changing the nature of the federal body to answer to Waterfront Toronto or abolishing it entirely and handing management of the harbour to WT.

Finally, there's the issue that Billy Bishop has been operating under old regulations, so technically it's not safe to land/take off from that runway according to the new federal standards. The Liberal government could decide to shut the whole thing down by mandating that it follow the new rules and at the same time making it impossible to build a runway extension.

This could be over, once and for all.
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I'd be happy to see all of the above. It would be a cunning way to not only stop the expansion, but could also be used to slowly, almost imperceptibly, strangle and eventually kill the airport itself. It would be a good strategy doing it that way. Death by a thousand cuts.
 
MetroMan said:
Finally, there's the issue that Billy Bishop has been operating under old regulations, so technically it's not safe to land/take off from that runway according to the new federal standards. The Liberal government could decide to shut the whole thing down by mandating that it follow the new rules and at the same time making it impossible to build a runway extension.

This could be over, once and for all.
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Towered said:
I'd be happy to see all of the above. It would be a cunning way to not only stop the expansion, but could also be used to slowly, almost imperceptibly, strangle and eventually kill the airport itself. It would be a good strategy doing it that way. Death by a thousand cuts.
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Except the final one is not gradual and as a taxpayer I would be very (very) worried about the very likely legal costs defending, and the liability from ultimately losing a hundreds of millions multi complainant law suit.

If I understand what MetroMan is suggesting is that

  • we licensed an airline to operate at an airport that was out of date regulation wise but we, in some way, grandfathered that operation from those regulations
  • we sat back as that airline invested money in planes and staff and operations to operate at that airport as their base of operations
  • we sat back as they invested in infrastructure like terminals, ferries, tunnels etc.
  • sat back and (likely) authorized the investment of other private investors to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in purhcasing (subject to the land lease) the new terminal
  • then we will insist that the airport is out of date with regulations
  • then we will refuse them the ability to correct that situation (which we authorized) by bringing the airport up to regulation
  • we will shut down the airport rendering all of that investment worthless?
If that is the plan, the citizens of Canada (represented by their government) better bring a very large chequebook to the shutting down party.
 
TOareaFan said:
Except the final one is not gradual and as a taxpayer I would be very (very) worried about the very likely legal costs defending, and the liability from ultimately losing a hundreds of millions multi complainant law suit.

If I understand what MetroMan is suggesting is that

  • we licensed an airline to operate at an airport that was out of date regulation wise but we, in some way, grandfathered that operation from those regulations
  • we sat back as that airline invested money in planes and staff and operations to operate at that airport as their base of operations
  • we sat back as they invested in infrastructure like terminals, ferries, tunnels etc.
  • sat back and (likely) authorized the investment of other private investors to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in purhcasing (subject to the land lease) the new terminal
  • then we will insist that the airport is out of date with regulations
  • then we will refuse them the ability to correct that situation (which we authorized) by bringing the airport up to regulation
  • we will shut down the airport rendering all of that investment worthless?
If that is the plan, the citizens of Canada (represented by their government) better bring a very large chequebook to the shutting down party.
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There's an intermediate step. Porter moves out of the island to Pearson or shuts down.

There is no more growth potential at Billy Bishop without expansion to popular routes only accessible by jets. Deluce started this airline with the intention of selling it like he has with his other businesses. He's already begun that process by selling the terminal at a healthy profit. Building the island airport with a jet airline on it while using mostly taxpayer money to finance the infrastructure was a risky bet and he almost got what he wanted. He lost that bet.

To expand the business and grow its value, Porter will have to move some of its operations to Pearson and I don't believe Deluce is interested in going head to head with the big players. That means that Porter has reached its peak value and if he's going to sell it, Deluce knows that it has to be soon. Once he's exhausted all his moves, I expect that he'll sell Porter to one of those big players or a foreign investor and go on to building his next business. If Air Canada or Westjet buys it, they'll eventually lose interest because it'll be such a small part of their business and the thing may just fold.

There's hardly any chance that Porter will ever last to the end of the tripartite agreement in 2033. The irony is that Porter has been pushing out the small aviation companies to other airstrips and helipads so when Porter eventually leaves or folds, there will be little in the way of just shutting the whole thing down because it's not up to regulation and can't be made to.
 
MetroMan said:
There's an intermediate step. Porter moves out of the island to Pearson or shuts down.
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That would be unfortunate. Toronto would benefit from having the airport expanded to increase flights and choice, rather than this NIMBY attitude of some!
 
No, a small portion of Toronto would benefit from an expanded airport. The billions of dollars of investment in making the waterfront a place for people would not benefit by expanding the industrial use of the waterfront. The airport is at capacity with ever worsening issues caused by building a major regional airport in a tiny corner meant for small aviation operations.

We already have a major airport and now we have an express rail connection that one can argue gets you faster to Pearson than you could get to Eireann Quay from a Bay Street office.
 
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