Billy Bishop Airport Expansion?

[innsertnamehere]

13% of Toronto is park land compared to 18% of Manhattan, one of the densest, most urbanized islands in the world. Your argument doesn't hold up even when compared to some high-rise-packed Chinese cities.


Do you have any idea how few people out of ~3.5 million Torontonians and more in the GTA would actually use Billy Bishop in any given year? A vanishingly small minority.


The Reich Chancellery predates everyone here, but noone decided to restore and expand that.... What a specious argument.

It was here before us and therefore it shall remain? Or it was here before us and therefore it shall be expanded? That's how we used to do things, and that's how we should always do things....Talk about regressive.

I'm not surprised, because you were recently arguing against Alto HSR for being too expensive and slow, it's no wonder that you want ostensibly fast and... more expensive(?) flights from Billy Bishop?

Did I say I thought Downtown didn't need any new parks? No. I said 28m2 is not a realistic standard to aim for, and that measuring by m2/resident is probably not a good way of doing it in general. Even your method of % of total land area is better.

Reich Chancellery? What? Godwin's law much. What in the world does this airport have to do with the Reich Chancellery? Part of the problem here is that this airport is dead in the water in 10 years if nothing is done as regional prop planes are no longer being produced.

Also - what percentage of residents of the GTA would use a park here instead - especially the percentage that won't otherwise use the Toronto Islands already existing? I can promise you it would be a much, much smaller percentage than the airport. Identifying the test for use of these lands as being "X% of 7 million people need to use this land annually" is a very odd way of measuring the value or highest and best use of some land..

 

[MaxMin]

Only 600 metres is beyond what everyone has already agreed to, a long time ago, just to maintain existing service.

And it's all west of Strachan - I'm not sure I'd call that downtown. And the only waterfront impacted is the already heavily impacted

While not physically within the downtown boundary (dvp to bathurst), I would say people use and consider the waterfront in its entirety including Ontario Place as part of the City's waterfront experience. Taking up 600m~750m of this is a significant impact.
Even all-west expansion option is not without major issues like essentially cutting off the western channel and blocking the waterfront view for the entirety of the east island.
WIll have to wait for public release of the plans but the benefits of having jets seem questionable to me.

 

[urbanclient]

Why not, 737s and A320s fly out of Key West and it's only about 5,500 ft?

Safety margin and different take off weights. You can look up how heavy the jets can be to get their minimum take off to be only 5,500 ft of runway. To be clear I could be wrong, AFAIK they weren't planning on 737s and A320s from recent expansion discussions.

Reich Chancellery? What? Godwin's law much.

Wasn't addressed to you, it was to point out the irony of @picard102 saying the preservationist "No one is putting [it] there, it predates everyone here who is alive." while being extremely socially progressive in some ways, pro-government-funded transit while being anti-HSR, but pro-jets-downtown, among other contradictions.

Did I say I thought Downtown didn't need any new parks? No. I said 28m2 is not a realistic standard to aim for, and that measuring by m2/resident is probably not a good way of doing it in general. Even your method of % of total land area is better.

I exaggerated the point I was attacking to address the broader audience of people who think Toronto, especially downtown, ranks highly enough for parkland. It doesn't.

I don't think grassy lawns etc. are necessarily the best use of urban land either, so I agree with one of your earlier points too. However, objectively, Toronto lacks parks, especially the skyscraper heavy downtown.

An expanded airport may not entirely prevent people from using parks nearby, but it would have downstream effects like making waterfront parks less desirable, less likely to be used. Height restrictions and reduced desirability preventing further densification. (Many do not want to live next to a more heavily used airport).

We already know 1/3rd of Little Norway park is likely to be expropriated.

The other issue someone brought up was traffic. 10 million passengers per year is 27,400 per day, even more on peak days. The crappy transit available before the Waterfront East and West LRTs are completed makes me question how viable this will be. I can only imagine how bad traffic will be on Lakeshore Blvd and the Gardiner after the airport expansion.

 

[Northern Light]

Did I say I thought Downtown didn't need any new parks? No. I said 28m2 is not a realistic standard to aim for

What? 8.4km2 of parkland in downtown Toronto would be excessive you say? Pffft

A park this size seems completely realistic:

LOL, while this certainly supports your suggestion that 28m2 is not achievable in the core, it also illustrates that the current amoutn of parkland is even 1/6th of that standard.

* technically the definition of downtown includes the Don Valley and the existing island parks which gives you 5.5m2 per person. But clearly that's misleading.

, and that measuring by m2/resident is probably not a good way of doing it in general. Even your method of % of total land area is better.

Neither of these method are ideal, taken in isolation. Parkland in m2 per person is good at representing capacity and function in theory, but to be useful you have to measure by parkland type (nature vs horticultural vs recreational) as they clearly serve very different functions/niches.

Parkland by area necessarily omits capacity per person. Likewise it doesn't do a good job with 'access' (all your parkland could be concentrated in or two areas and not be usable day to day by someone 10km away)

The best evaluation is one that considers both of the above as well as nearest distance to access 'x' and wait lists for various facilities.

Reich Chancellery? What? Godwin's law much. What in the world does this airport have to do with the Reich Chancellery?

Its certainly an extreme example but you do invite that sort of thing with your style of commenting. You make lots of absolutist statements, lack of nuance can breed same.

Part of the problem here is that this airport is dead in the water in 10 years if nothing is done as regional prop planes are no longer being produced.

I'm not sure I agree that's a problem.

Also - what percentage of residents of the GTA would use a park here instead - especially the percentage that won't otherwise use the Toronto Islands already existing? I can promise you it would be a much, much smaller percentage than the airport. Identifying the test for use of these lands as being "X% of 7 million people need to use this land annually" is a very odd way of measuring the value or highest and best use of some land..

Two problems with this.

One, your expanding the benefits test to entire GTA? That's a rather unfair way to compare to something like park space which exists in Hamilton, and Oakville and Vaughan.

Two, a mass benefit test could see landfill located here. More people would likely 'benefit' if most GTA garbage were dumped here than if it were an airport or a park.

Of course that's a wildly extreme and preposterous example, but its also one using the standard you just employed.

***

I do like you, LOL but your pro-highway and pro airport (anti-urban) pet causes do inspire in you a certain "But I want it" way of arguing that really isn't well supported by evidence.

 

[picard102]

I had a large paragraph, not quoted here, about a park being the minimum that could be done with the land. But yes, the ability to access the island without going to the ferry terminal, and making access much easier for those in the west is a pretty big improvement for civic life. I don't know why you won't seem to acknowledge that there are many potential uses at play?

You have no way of guaranteeing that the tunnel would be open to the public if the airport was no longer operating. If it were me, I'd flood it. Port authority probably would prefer to charge a premium to use it.
But getting to the island isn't hard.

 

[Ward8]

But getting to the island isn't hard.

Neither is getting to Pearson. Convenience for many or convenience for a few. Again, I will note, we're choosing to ignore the many potential uses of this site.

 

[Northern Light]

You have no way of guaranteeing that the tunnel would be open to the public if the airport was no longer operating. If it were me, I'd flood it

Whatever your preferences as to the airport's future, suggesting destroying perfectly good public infrastructure out of spite is not a reasonable thing for which to advocate.

"If I can't have it, no cone can, burn it down" is simply an unreasonable world view on just about any subject.

In any event, the tunnel is the subject of a P3 which preclude said option through 2035.

Its existence or removal is also governed by multiple federal statues.

 

[picard102]

Neither is getting to Pearson. Convenience for many or convenience for a few. Again, I will note, we're choosing to ignore the many potential uses of this site.

Except again, there is no "convenience for many" The airport closes it sits empty. Ports is under no obligation to allow users to use the airfield for transit to the park.
Ignoring that making it easier to access the park, specifically closer to Hanlan's, is going to worsen the park experiance.

 

[smallspy]

Part of the problem here is that this airport is dead in the water in 10 years if nothing is done as regional prop planes are no longer being produced.

While I am still remain firmly undecided about the fate of the airport (and can see good points made by both sides).....

This particular passage is hopelessly untrue. Airbus has no intentions of discontinuing ATR production, Embraer is still an ongoing concern, and the first new-build Q400s are likely to be flying next year, with orders for another 3 or 4 dozen still outstanding.

Dan

 

[Admiral Beez]

Reich Chancellery? What? Godwin's law much. What in the world does this airport have to do with the Reich Chancellery?

Hmmm..... to get from the Queen's Park tunnels to the escape plane? The ghost of Hanna Reitsch might need more than her Fieseler Storch to get 300 lbs of Ford into the air.

 

[Ward8]

Except again, there is no "convenience for many" The airport closes it sits empty. Ports is under no obligation to allow users to use the airfield for transit to the park.
Ignoring that making it easier to access the park, specifically closer to Hanlan's, is going to worsen the park experiance.

This is not what would happen if the airport shut down.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Airbus has no intentions of discontinuing ATR production, Embraer is still an ongoing concern, and the first new-build Q400s are likely to be flying next year, with orders for another 3 or 4 dozen still outstanding.

The ATR is not a sole Airbus venture. In November 2025, Embraer officially cancelled plans for a new 70–90 seat turboprop regional airliner (TPNG) because it could not secure a launch partner. And DHC (Viking) cannot produce more than four water bombers a year, while the last Bombardier Q400 (Dash-8) rolled off the production line in 2022. Beyond DHC refurbs, the Q400 is dead. Similarly, SAAB 2000 production ended in 1999, the Fokker 50/60 ended in 1999 and the BAe ATP in 1996. The only prop airliner in this category still in production is the ATR 72 (not a sole Airbus venture, BTW), which no North American passenger service uses. IDK if the ATR has ever landed at YTZ. Regardless, the market for 70-90 seat prop airliners is clearing coming to an end.

 

[TRONto]

I also worry about jets (even if quieter than turboprops) restricting further densification near the waterfront. Valuable density in countless coastal cities throughout the world. Not an expert on this, but usually there are height restrictions near airports, even if the building is not in a typical flight path.

Waterfront densification is already being overdone. Canary District should be the ideal for the waterfront but we are getting SkyTower and sister buildings right on the waterfront. Toronto has more than enough space to build to be concerned with height restrictions on the waterfront as it relates to Toronto's housing inventory.

 

[TRONto]

What are we really losing if the airport is gone? The flights will go to Pearson. So it's a better security line and the dubious need for redundancy? If they hit even half the numbers they are talking about, the airport experience will be no different than Pearson. I'm just not all that impressed by the value add of this thing.

Can we really not think of a better use for the land? Are our imaginations that limited? What good city has an airport 500meters from its central waterfront? People bring up London City as an example when it would be closer to Pearson than Billy Bishop measured to the CBD. It's genuinely an incomparable level of absurdity. What city puts an airport in the middle of its premier city centre park?

The average citizen is frankly not going to notice the absence of the airport. On the flipside. Doing something special with the land would a major impact across class and geographic lines.

Redundancy and competition are good things for the city of Toronto's economic health. I'm surprised anyone can call redundancy dubious after going through covid. Toronto is more dynamic and competitive with Alto, BB and Pearson. The island is pretty much going to be as it currently if this expansion ever happens.

Calling the islands the premier city centre park is a bit much. I see it as a place for people outside downtown/Toronto to visit when they are visiting Toronto. I have bumped into friends from the burbs there quite a few times. Outside of the kids field trips I can't say I have visited much in the past decade nor do I know of anyone else living downtown who has even mentioned that they took a trip there. Typically we'd rather visit Grange, Trinity Bellwoods or Berzcy among other parks due to the overhead of visiting the islands.

It's an underrated jewel for Toronto but I think all this talk is a bit overblown.

 

[nfitz]

What are we really losing if the airport is gone? The flights will go to Pearson. So it's a better security line and the dubious need for redundancy? If they hit even half the numbers they are talking about, the airport experience will be no different than Pearson. I'm just not all that impressed by the value add of this thing.

Going from almost 3 million a year (pre-Covid) to 5 million a year would give you an experience that's no different than Pearson?

That doesn't sound right to me.

13% of Toronto is park land compared to 18% of Manhattan, one of the densest, most urbanized islands in the world.

Where that argument falls apart, is that so much of that 18% is in a single park, that isn't close to many, many people. When I walk through Manhattan, what I look and think is how few parks there are compared to Toronto.

If they made Central Park a couple of blocks bigger, it wouldn't change the shortage of parks in most of Manhattan. Adding more park to Toronto Islands doesn't impact any of the areas in Toronto that the city have noted have a deficit of parks.

Do you have any idea how few people out of ~3.5 million Torontonians and more in the GTA would actually use Billy Bishop in any given year? A vanishingly small minority.

Probably true of the Islands as well. We know that visits to the islands are about 1.5 million a year - less than the airport, even after the post-Covid drop.