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>>>The majority are not taking the bus. The Porter counter in the SkyWalk was so unused they closed it. <<<

The problem with the Skywalk counter was that absolutely noone knew that it was there, even those that did know where the bus stopped. The current stop by the Royal York is much better, although they might want to consider adding another stop or two around downtown. The more the bus drives around, the more people see the big Porter logo on its roof out their office windows.

I expect most people come and go by cab though. For anyone in the general area of downtown, its a pretty cheap fare. If you are heading there from the office though, the bus is actually pretty convenient.
 
It occurs to me that during the election that was all about the bridge (2 elections ago?), most people in the city were of the opinion "There is an airport downtown?". Convincing them that the airport was a bad idea in a general way wasn't very hard as few had ever used it.

Next time around, if the issue comes up, hundreds of thousands of people will have taken that ferry trip (probably 40-45% Toronto residents) and thought to themselves "This is a really stupid ferry trip".

I wonder if anyone will bring up the idea of building a bridge as a vote getter.
 
Since when would building an expensive bridge for the benefit of a private company be a vote getter? Sounds like Blue22. A bridge would make the airport a longer walk from transit, on the other side they would need to build groundside facilites and use up some of their existing island side parking for the approaches, and the lift bridge would be problematic with congestion on the bridge.
 
There is nothing wrong with having a regional airport in a city. We have to realize just how big the Washington, Phi, NY, Bos, Mtl, Ott, Tor, Det, Chi market is! That in no uncertain terms is the economic engine for North America! I'd hazard to guess that there would be somewhere around 16 million people in that market.

Many cities have more than one airport to be honest (link), Vancouver has 7 (mind you with a few harbour ports for float planes, LA and NY have 6 (btw they have Newark listed as 8km from the city centre, London has 5, Chi has 4. These aren't poh dunk little towns either these are some of the major cities on the world economic stage!

Toronto... has one. Sure you could count Hamilton and Buffalo as they fall in a 100 km radius of the city core but neither really serve the city per se. If we started to see flights headed to Hamilton instead on Pearson, and there was a sort of Air link between the 2 centres than you could say that Hamilton served Toronto. Plus even with a 6'th runway Pearson is starting to be strained by the traffic it is seeing. In their last master plan they spoke about moving all GA traffic off their premesis and, for example, into Buttonville.

As I said before an airport need not serve the international flights that a plane like the A380 will be on. The relative time benefit of using the island vs Pearson is negligable when you are on flight for a minimum of 6 hrs (sometime 18hrs), the biggest benefit is leveraged on short haul flights where the travel to and check in time at the airport can take up to 1/3 to 2/3 of your overall trip. Just because it doesn't (or can't) serve international flights does not mean that it is not valuable or successfull.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
Many cities have more than one airport to be honest, Vancouver has 7 (mind you with a few harbour ports for float planes, LA and NY have 6 (btw they have Newark listed as 8km from the city centre, London has 5, Chi has 4. These aren't poh dunk little towns either these are some of the major cities on the world economic stage!

Toronto... has one. Sure you could count Hamilton and Buffalo as they fall in a 100 km radius of the city core but neither really serve the city per se. If we started to see flights headed to Hamilton instead on Pearson, and there was a sort of Air link between the 2 centres than you could say that Hamilton served Toronto. Plus even with a 6'th runway Pearson is starting to be strained by the traffic it is seeing. In their last master plan they spoke about moving all GA traffic off their premesis and, for example, into Buttonville.

As I said before an airport need not serve the international flights that a plane like the A380 will be on. The relative time benefit of using the island vs Pearson is negligable when you are on flight for a minimum of 6 hrs (sometime 18hrs), the biggest benefit is leveraged on short haul flights where the travel to and check in time at the airport can take up to 1/3 to 2/3 of your overall trip. Just because it doesn't (or can't) serve international flights does not mean that it is not valuable or successfull.
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Well, if Vancouver has 7 airports, by your count, then Toronto surely has at least 5 (Oshawa, Buttonville, Hamilton and City Centre). The 6 in Los Angeles probably includes Palmdale with a whopping 20,000 annual passengers. Secondly, if we are having trouble finding space for airplanes to land and take-off on 6 runways, then we have an organizational problem, more than anything else. Atlanta can push through twice as many flights as Pearson currently handles on 5; London's airports (yes, all of them: LHR, LGW, STN, LTN and LCY) have just 6 runways combined. Finally, no airport in Chicago, New York or LA is any psychologically closer to their city centres than Pearson is to downtown Toronto. Sure, Newark is 8 km away from Lower Manhattan as the crow flies, but when you're stuck in a taxi (a $70 ride!)on the New Jersey turnpike in rush hour, or waiting for a signal to clear in the Hudson rail tunnel, you feel that it might as well be in Delaware.
 
Hipster Duck said:
Well, if Vancouver has 7 airports, by your count, then Toronto surely has at least 5 (Oshawa, Buttonville, Hamilton and City Centre). The 6 in Los Angeles probably includes Palmdale with a whopping 20,000 annual passengers. Secondly, if we are having trouble finding space for airplanes to land and take-off on 6 runways, then we have an organizational problem, more than anything else. Atlanta can push through twice as many flights as Pearson currently handles on 5; London's airports (yes, all of them: LHR, LGW, STN, LTN and LCY) have just 6 runways combined. Finally, no airport in Chicago, New York or LA is any psychologically closer to their city centres than Pearson is to downtown Toronto. Sure, Newark is 8 km away from Lower Manhattan as the crow flies, but when you're stuck in a taxi (a $70 ride!)on the New Jersey turnpike in rush hour, or waiting for a signal to clear in the Hudson rail tunnel, you feel that it might as well be in Delaware.
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Nope, and it's not my count it's wikipedia's count (not saying that wikipedia is a bastion of knowledge but..), might want to check the link before responding. The link specifically mentioned that only airports with scheduled passenger services are listed. No military airports, or charter/GA airports. AFAIK Oshawa and Buttonville are charter/GA airports and are not served by regular passenger service (i.e. Porter, AC, Jazz, WestJet). Secondly I made my point about Hamilton while being within a 100 km catchment area of Toronto, it really doesn't serve the Toronto market the way that a Newark would. Now if there was a direct link between Hamilton (not piddly GO) and airlines started to serve Hamilton's airport specifically for Toronto bound passengers (say to avoid the high landing fees?) than we can talk about Hamilton serving the Toronto region. Thirdly, City Centre I will give you as the page seems out of date, with Porter now serving the island airport it would qualify as an airport with scheduled passenger service. That still leaves us with 3, Pearson (the big one), Hamilton (the outsider, sure it's there but it's not being used really), and City Centre (which we want to tear down)

WRT to runways. All 6 runways are never in use all at once. The 4 main ones are the E-W runways (3 now, with one more to be built) and they are used 90% of the time, and the 2 N-S runways are used when there is a strong N-S wind in order to make takeoffs and landings easier. I think the problem that Pearson had with GA traffic, and please someone tell me if Newark, Gatwick, JFK, etc all accept GA traffic, was due to the inconsistent nature of that type of traffic. Since the flights are not on a schedule and can come up within, say, a 2 hr time window it does throw a wrench into the facilities planning. If one GA aircraft delays one plane at rush hr (5pm to 7pm) it can and does affect the entire airports operations. Although I'll have to read the master plan again to refresh my memory as to why they want GA traffic out of there.

Finally I was only making a correction to the previous posters statement that Newark is 18 km from Manhatten when Wikipedia reports it as 8km. Besides coming in from Pearson during rush hour can result in just as long and painfull a cab ride into the core as Newark can.
 
Hamilton does't count as serving Toronto, but Abbotsford counts as serving Vancouver?

also notice how cities in BC have waterairports and helipads count toward their total, but other world cities generally only have major airports.. the person adding them is a Canadian, and before they added all those airports Vancouver and Victoria weren't even on the list.
 
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Hipster Duck said:
Well, if Vancouver has 7 airports, by your count, then Toronto surely has at least 5 (Oshawa, Buttonville, Hamilton and City Centre).
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We also have Downsview; and if you include Hamilton you might as well include Waterloo-Wellington between Kitchener and Guelph which is about as far away as Hamilton ... so that's at least 7 airports.
 
Chicago has 4 airports? Are you really counting Gary "International Airport" - with no commercial service. I guess you could make a case for Rockford, which really would be the Chicago answer to Hamilton.

Vancouver 7? Ok, there's YVR, Abbotsford, and the seaplane aerodrome, perhaps Langley, Boundary Bay. That's 5 at most.

So I estimate Toronto at 6 - YYZ, YTZ, YHM, Oshawa, Buttonville, Downsview. Ok, who wants to include Brampton Airport? After all, it is Canada's busiest flying club!
 
By those standards Sudbury has 4-5 airports ... aerodromes shouldnt really count.
 
>>>AFAIK Oshawa and Buttonville are charter/GA airports and are not served by regular passenger service (i.e. Porter, AC, Jazz, WestJet)<<<

Buttonville has had scheduled service in the past. I flew to Ottawa on Bearskin a couple of times a few years ago.

On the other hand, it is quite possible that Buttonville will be closed before too long.
 
Being a former Flight Attendant for Zoom Airlines, I can say that I'm quite content with the island airport expanding. Here's hoping down the road it won't go any further though. I'm also very impressed with Porter Airlines' service and class. It gives Toronto the much respect it deserves.

Respectfully,
Josef
 
Successes and failures of island airport

Re: Island airport success, Editorial, April 28

Your editorial touted what has succeeded at the island airport. Allow me to complete the accounting by listing some of the failures. These failures are a blight on the waterfront and by no means should they be celebrated.

Curfew violations. Porter planes have landed after the 11 p.m. airport curfew, without penalties being levied by the Toronto Port Authority.

Excessive noise has been an ongoing problem for residents living along the waterfront and elsewhere in the city. The Toronto Port Authority has acknowledged this through the creation of a noise management committee tasked with mitigation strategies, yet has gone ahead with airport expansion prior to the results of this committee being tabled.

Taxi queueing issues. Despite assurances that many passengers would travel by bus or streetcar to reach the airport, most Porter travellers seem to travel by taxi. This has resulted in major problems with taxis taking over the neighbourhood, often racing down area streets and idling as they wait for fares, immediately next to a park, community centre and school.

The noise, the pollution and the behaviour and impact of airport traffic are having a horrendous impact on the communities I represent.



Adam Vaughan, City Councillor, Ward 20 - Trinity Spadina

Porter Airlines announcement of its $45 million expansion at Toronto City Centre Airport is terrific news. Not only will it create hundreds of direct construction and airline jobs but it will also help to sustain jobs at Bombardier's Toronto facility, which manufactures the DASH 8 Q400. The additional 10 aircraft order comes at a time when Canada's aerospace sector is beginning to feel the painful effects of the global recession. Recently, more than 400 Bombardier workers in Toronto received layoff notices. It's opportunities like this that will help the country emerge from this global financial meltdown.


Roland Kiehne, President, CAW Local 112, Toronto

I was stunned to see the editorial supporting the expansion of the island airport. More pollution, more noise and doubling the risk of a plane crashing into a waterfront condo makes no sense for people who claim to care about the quality of life on the waterfront and the Islands. I thought the plan was to make a green, people-friendly waterfront for all Torontonians; turning Queen's Quay into a treed strolling area with people activities, not turn it into an airport runway. Once again private greed has won out over the public good. The Star's support of corporate greed over the public good to me exemplifies what has gone wrong with newspapers.

Jim Purdie, Toronto
 
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