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The Music Garden was packed today with people attending a classical music concert. It quickly became apparent how disruptive the island airport is. Planes are very loud when you're participating in an activity that requires silence.

An argument used by defenders of the island airport is that it's been there for decades. It has, but back then it was just a sleepy small aircraft airport with the occasional Cesna landing or taking off. Porter has turned Billy Bishop into a busy regional commuter airport. That is recent and it's a problem for our waterfront.

Because of Porter's deceitful and hostile tactics and politics towards our city for corporate gain, I've moved from an anti jet, yet ok with prop planes position to a full on advocate for killing the airport and turning it into a park like the rest of Centre Island.

I think that if Trudeau can remain in power for a decade and with Adam Vaughan as MP, Porter is going to have a very hard time operating without any of the growth that they're desperately seeking. I bet Deluce sells the airline for parts if Trudeau is re-elected in 2019. It'll be important to have a Mayor who takes that opportunity to block any other large airlines from taking root at Billy Bishop.
 
MetroMan said:
The Music Garden was packed today with people attending a classical music concert. It quickly became apparent how disruptive the island airport is. Planes are very loud when you're participating in an activity that requires silence.
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Airport or not an activity requiring silence shouldn't be happening at the Music Garden.
 
Edward Skira said:
Airport or not an activity requiring silence shouldn't be happening at the Music Garden.
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Or anywhere downtown, for that matter. If you ask me, the only people who have a valid complaint about the noise are people living on the Islands. For everyone else, those planes aren't anywhere near as loud as the ambulances, police cars, fire trucks and random noisy cars that pass by several times each hour. Downtown isn't a quiet place. People who live downtown have no reason to expect to be in a quiet place, and closing down the airport isn't going to make any difference.
 
amnesiajune said:
Or anywhere downtown, for that matter. If you ask me, the only people who have a valid complaint about the noise are people living on the Islands. For everyone else, those planes aren't anywhere near as loud as the ambulances, police cars, fire trucks and random noisy cars that pass by several times each hour. Downtown isn't a quiet place. People who live downtown have no reason to expect to be in a quiet place, and closing down the airport isn't going to make any difference.
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I've never really found that type of territorialism an appealing concept in city building. Our waterfront is meant for the enjoyment of all, regardless of one's proximity to it.

I'm fine with the airport in its current form (as a regular user of both the waterfront and the airport) but certainly wouldn't want to see an expansion of any sort, for pretty much all the reasons that others have eloquently laid out in this thread. I think this is fundamentally different than "regular city noise" for a whole bunch of reasons, and certainly reject the notion that opposition to expansion should be lumped in with general NIMBYism.
 
ADRM said:
Our waterfront is meant for the enjoyment of all, regardless of one's proximity to it.
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Should we also tear down every business, house and condo building that restricts access to some part of the waterfront?

I understand if people don't want the runway to be expanded, since that actually does impact people's ability to use and enjoy the lake. Wanting the airport to be closed down is what I find to be mostly NIMBYism.
 
amnesiajune said:
Should we also tear down every business, house and condo building that restricts access to some part of the waterfront?

I understand if people don't want the runway to be expanded, since that actually does impact people's ability to use and enjoy the lake. Wanting the airport to be closed down is what I find to be mostly NIMBYism.
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No, I'm not arguing for that, which is why I made that clear in my last post.
 
amnesiajune said:
Or anywhere downtown, for that matter. If you ask me, the only people who have a valid complaint about the noise are people living on the Islands. For everyone else, those planes aren't anywhere near as loud as the ambulances, police cars, fire trucks and random noisy cars that pass by several times each hour. Downtown isn't a quiet place. People who live downtown have no reason to expect to be in a quiet place, and closing down the airport isn't going to make any difference.
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I lived on the waterfront for over 10 years, including 6 years directly across from the airport. The planes aren't bothersome during take off and landing, but they are loud when they do engine run-ups, sometimes for half an hour at a time. But yes, there is a lot more noise in that area than just the airport.
 
PinkLucy said:
I lived on the waterfront for over 10 years, including 6 years directly across from the airport. The planes aren't bothersome during take off and landing, but they are loud when they do engine run-ups, sometimes for half an hour at a time. But yes, there is a lot more noise in that area than just the airport.
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Has that abated somewhat since they finished the new run-up blast walls?
 
amnesiajune said:
Or anywhere downtown, for that matter. If you ask me, the only people who have a valid complaint about the noise are people living on the Islands. For everyone else, those planes aren't anywhere near as loud as the ambulances, police cars, fire trucks and random noisy cars that pass by several times each hour. Downtown isn't a quiet place. People who live downtown have no reason to expect to be in a quiet place, and closing down the airport isn't going to make any difference.
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Excuse me? I live on King and Brant facing into a quiet courtyard. I don’t hear any cars or people. It’s so far from the waterfront, yet the one thing that I hear are the loud revving planes.

They weren’t there before. Yes, I have a right to complain. Downtown is no place for an airport.
 
Edward Skira said:
Airport or not an activity requiring silence shouldn't be happening at the Music Garden.
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The Music Garden is one of the quietest spots on the entire waterfront. It was designed to be a contemplative space. The garden creates a barrier to the road and small aircraft that were there when the park was built are barely audible. It’s the large dash 8 prop planes that sound like a lawnmower every 5 minutes.
 
The downtown waterfront would be a far more pleasant and enjoyable place with the airport shut down and the space converted into a vast park. Pearson is easily accessible by train now so the convenience argument is a non-starter. I honestly can't think of a single benefit YTZ brings to the city. A giant downtown park OTOH, accessible by foot (thanks to the lovely new pedestrian tunnels) would satisfy so many needs of the burgeoning local population that I don't even know where to start. Suffice to say, it would be an absolute game changer for the city.
 
Irishmonk said:
The downtown waterfront would be a far more pleasant and enjoyable place with the airport shut down and the space converted into a vast park. Pearson is easily accessible by train now so the convenience argument is a non-starter. I honestly can't think of a single benefit YTZ brings to the city. A giant downtown park OTOH, accessible by foot (thanks to the lovely new pedestrian tunnels) would satisfy so many needs of the burgeoning local population that I don't even know where to start. Suffice to say, it would be an absolute game changer for the city.
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This is what rail deck park is for...
 
MetroMan said:
Excuse me? I live on King and Brant facing into a quiet courtyard. I don’t hear any cars or people. It’s so far from the waterfront, yet the one thing that I hear are the loud revving planes.

They weren’t there before. Yes, I have a right to complain. Downtown is no place for an airport.
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Again, downtown is a loud place. King and Brant is a very loud place. The airport has also been there since the 1930s, and Air Canada's been running passenger service out of there since the 1990s. You have a right to complain, but I don't think your complaints are any more reasonable than someone living at Derry & Airport Road who complains about Pearson Airport. At least the people living out there don't have three nightclubs on their block.
 
Given the negative public view of airports and the resulting difficulty in opening new airports (see Pickering, Heathrow expansion, etc) I think it is valuable to keep existing airports as much as possible.
 
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