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

Making it easy for tourists is not a selling point IMO. I don't want large numbers of people wandering over and ruining a somewhat peaceful space. Let alone the gawkers coming to the clothing optional beach.
 
AlexBozikovic said:
Responding to a couple of comments about my piece: The key points here are accsss and proximity.

Access to the Island Park via the airport site is vastly more convenient and pleasant than the Ward’s Island alternative.

The western gap, where the airport ferry lands, is a mile from the CN Tower, tourism hub of the city, and less than a mile from the new King-Bathurst subway station. Union is 2.1km. It is totally plausible for people to walk there in large numbers. The Bathurst streetcar already exists.

The eastern gap is roughly 4.5 km from the centre. If a bridge was built there, it would land on Unwin Avenue, an industrial district. Even when the waterfront East LRT is eventually finished, it would be far less convenient, pleasant, and intuitive to reach the islands via this route.

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I do not always agree with you but in this case you are absolutely correct: bringing tourists/visitors to the island via a bridge to Ward's Island is not sensible and a link via the airport would be FAR better. Exactly how to achieve this (a sunken walkway, a tunnel or ??) is an open question but as noted by Shawn Micallef in the Star piece noted above, the time to discuss this is if/when the Tri-Partite Agreement is reopened. https://www.thestar.com/opinion/con...cle_e8f68bde-6154-11ef-9318-8b5420c7a2e1.html
 
AlexBozikovic said:
Responding to a couple of comments about my piece: The key points here are accsss and proximity.

Access to the Island Park via the airport site is vastly more convenient and pleasant than the Ward’s Island alternative.

The western gap, where the airport ferry lands, is a mile from the CN Tower, tourism hub of the city, and less than a mile from the new King-Bathurst subway station. Union is 2.1km. It is totally plausible for people to walk there in large numbers. The Bathurst streetcar already exists.

The eastern gap is roughly 4.5 km from the centre. If a bridge was built there, it would land on Unwin Avenue, an industrial district. Even when the waterfront East LRT is eventually finished, it would be far less convenient, pleasant, and intuitive to reach the islands via this route.

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I think that even if BOTH a tunnel/walkway from Billy Bishop AND a bridge at Wards were open, you would still see at least one Ferry, going from Jack Layton Terminal to Centre Island.

The walk to Centre, where many people want to go, from either Billy Bishop or Wards is still quite long on the island.

It would make sense to still run 1 ferry from the very heart of downtown to Centre Island imo.

The Tunnel/walkway makes more sense, but we might still see a bridge from Wards some day, simply because of the Portlands project and how much density and attention that will bring to that area.
 
robmausser said:
Anything is possible

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Indeed. The Deluces (both Robert and his son Michael) have strong social network with Conservative Party members, but if they're not providing funding to Ports Toronto then the entire thing comes down to Toronto Council.

The renewal terms of the tripartite agreement will dominate Ports Toronto financial position. At the moment the airport will not meet the 2027 Runway End Safety Area requirements without opening this agreement. Toronto receives very little direct revenue from either the airport or the airlines. Chow, with strong support of council, holds all the cards. Chow has also shown the ability to get non-trivial concessions from senior government for support of pet projects: uploading Gardiner in exchange for approval of Ontario Place changes.

I believe the choice is allow expansion of the runways OR reduce the runway length (to accommodate mandatory RESA) which disallows Q400's from using the airport entirely.

As such, it wouldn't surprise me at all if construction of lengthened runways (and maybe quiet jets) was approved simultaneous to a large funding injection into Waterfront Toronto (Union streetcar expansion, etc.).
 
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In a year we will in almost all likelyhood have conservative federal and provincial governments in support of the airport, and those governments will stand for several years.

I struggle to see a scenario where the airport is closed any time soon, and if anything, would be suprised if an expansion scheme of some sort doesn't go through.
 
robmausser said:
Anything is possible

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He said that when Pearson (and I think other airports in Canada and around the world) had trouble with delays almost entirely because of a shortage of staff. He didn't explain how an expanded island airport -- presumably with the same total number of available airport workers in the GTA now spread more thinly across two airports -- would somehow have been an improvement in the situation at the time, instead of making it worse.

He also failed to mention any airline that supposedly wanted this hypothetical expanded island airport. Porter was the only one asking for it several years ago, but that was back when they also owned the terminal. They might not be saying it out loud right now, but it seems like they would likely prefer to move out and have all of their Toronto operations at YYZ.
https://archive.is/1Td37
Air Canada was quite specifically against Porter's plan to expand YTZ for jets at the time.
 
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rbt said:
Indeed. The Deluces (both Robert and his son Michael) have strong social network with Conservative Party members, but if they're not providing funding to Ports Toronto then the entire thing comes down to Toronto Council.

The renewal terms of the tripartite agreement will dominate Ports Toronto financial position. At the moment the airport will not meet the 2027 Runway End Safety Area requirements without opening this agreement. Toronto receives very little direct revenue from either the airport or the airlines. Chow, with strong support of council, holds all the cards. Chow has also shown the ability to get non-trivial concessions from senior government for support of pet projects: uploading Gardiner in exchange for approval of Ontario Place changes.

I believe the choice is allow expansion of the runways OR reduce the runway length (to accommodate mandatory RESA) which disallows Q400's from using the airport entirely.

As such, it wouldn't surprise me at all if construction of lengthened runways (and maybe quiet jets) was approved simultaneous to a large funding injection into Waterfront Toronto (Union streetcar expansion, etc.).
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One can hope!
 
So if the lease is extended does Ports Toronto have the option to propose another use like development?
 
picard102 said:
Making it easy for tourists is not a selling point IMO. I don't want large numbers of people wandering over and ruining a somewhat peaceful space. Let alone the gawkers coming to the clothing optional beach.
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Let the gawkers come I say - proudly flaunt nudity in their faces. They can't handle it anyway.
 
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SubHuman said:
He said that when Pearson (and I think other airports in Canada and around the world) had trouble with delays almost entirely because of a shortage of staff. He didn't explain how an expanded island airport -- presumably with the same total number of available airport workers in the GTA now spread more thinly across two airports -- would somehow have been an improvement in the situation at the time, instead of making it worse.

He also failed to mention any airline that supposedly wanted this hypothetical expanded island airport. Porter was the only one asking for it several years ago, but that was back when they also owned the terminal. They might not be saying it out loud right now, but it seems like they would likely prefer to move out and have all of their Toronto operations at YYZ.
https://archive.is/1Td37
Air Canada was quite specifically against Porter's plan to expand YTZ for jets at the time.
Click to expand...

This is so riddled with falsehoods I don't know where to begin

Air Canada was OF COURSE against Porters plan, because it would be in direct competition with them and they weren't allowed to do it as Porter owned the Island Airport at the time. If Air Canada was allowed jets off the island you know they would be doing it the second they could. They aren't anti-jets on the island, they are anti-Porter.

The only reason Porter expanded to Pearson was because any big business has to keep expanding to stay economically viable, especially airlines. Stagnation is death. Porter absolutely would rather have Jets on the island, and are still interested in it, and they are not interested at all in losing Billy Bishop, its the only thing that gives them any sense of differentiation and advantage over other airlines. They like it so much that they are repeating the plan with Montreal/St.Hubert City Airport.

Sorry but this reeks of revisionist history for someone who is in love with the idea of the airport being turned into a park. Its just all speculation and changing the past to suit your narrative.

PortsToronto said that they are still interested in jets, thats all you need to know.
 
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