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Pickering Airport (Transport Canada/GTAA, Proposed)

MarkBrooks said:
Thank-you for your questions, as they provide some interesting insights to the disconnect in this discussion.

Perhaps caused by the relentless trolling from the anti-capitalist crowd on this forum,


in order:

  1. Pickering is purposed as a utility airport ( see ASA report). On the low end, this is similar traffic to what is now being handled at Buttonville, on the high end these are the operators being squeezed out of Pearson by high costs and lack of ground space.
  2. While your average consumer only sees aviation from an big airline point of view , the majority of flights in Canada are not related to the large airlines. But specially airlines ( Fly GTA for example) does operate out of Buttonville today, so pickering is expected to continue and have the ground space to expand. ( disclosure- Some of my freelance gigs have involved flying for, or doing flight training for these operators)
  3. Pearson and City center have foot print /space constraints and have selectively blocked utility operators with high prices as they are not seen as maximizing scarce resource utilization compared to the airlines. Buttonville has always been the overflow. This is the reason it has a waiting list of aircraft looking for hangar space and the reason why it is a profitable private airport. Why pay $1100 to land and park at signature for an hour at yyz when you can land and park at Buttonville for a $100, offload and load with ease?
Click to expand...

1. I thought you were touting it as a GA airport to take traffic from Pearson.
2. People on here are not quite that naive.
3. Why can''t they then move to Hamilton's or Waterloo's?
 
The airport lands are north of Highway 7, which are still vacant. Most of the old houses in the area have been demolished now and the land is basically entirely unoccupied- it’s almost fascinating how it’s such a quiet area so close to the GTA.

The lands south of Highway 7 is Seaton, and while they were originally part of the airport lands, my understanding is they were originally intended to be used as industrial areas and not for the airport itself. They’ve been in private ownership again for at least 20 years as well.
 
Round and round we go...

The Mayor of Pickering relayed that Transport Canada is revisiting numbers to update supply and demand forecasts and re-assess how to address future demand. There hasn't been any expansion of other (airport) infrastructure as required in order for Pearson to be viable beyond mid 2030...
 
Coolibop said:
The Mayor of Pickering
Click to expand...

Another study of aviation capacity in the GTA.

Irrespective of what it says, no government will consider itself bound to investment or divestment just like the last 3 decades.

While I oppose this airport, and would prefer expansion of Rouge Park on its lands, either way, this is a delay tactic/consultant enrichment move.
 
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It certainly seems that way as the (pickering) council is pretty much split down the middle with the newly elected (who raised the issue hoping it would be voted against). I pretty much have figured out where everyone stands but the one councilor who carries the deciding vote...not that it has great impact given federal jurisdiction?
 
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I would expect them to hold on to the possibility of Pickering Airport until the growth of demand at Pearson peaks or Pearson maxes out it's capacity. However, I can't see them working on it now unless they think they could make the airport 24/7 (free of the Pearson night restrictions) in which case I could see them building the airport for cargo.
 
Pickering Airport will likely just continue to get landbanked for another few decades until it's actually needed, which just isn't quite yet. There is still a decent amount of capacity which can be squeezed out of Pearson.

If anything, demand is being dispersed into Southern Ontario to YHM, YKF, and YXU to even further delay the need for Pickering. COVID has thrown passenger growth numbers off as well, delaying it's need even further.

I suspect the next 20 years will see Pearson expand to it's max and some demand further dispersed into Southern Ontario with expansions of YHM, YKF, and YXU before we see Pickering built.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Pickering Airport will likely just continue to get landbanked for another few decades until it's actually needed, which just isn't quite yet. There is still a decent amount of capacity which can be squeezed out of Pearson.

If anything, demand is being dispersed into Southern Ontario to YHM, YKF, and YXU to even further delay the need for Pickering. COVID has thrown passenger growth numbers off as well, delaying it's need even further.

I suspect the next 20 years will see Pearson expand to it's max and some demand further dispersed into Southern Ontario with expansions of YHM, YKF, and YXU before we see Pickering built.
Click to expand...
I was going to say, YHM has been growing and is closest to the GTA of these three. Not to mention, it would be glad to accept even more growth. I don't see the relative benefit of building at Pickering instead, given both are in greenfield areas. Of course, it is in their local interest to advocate for it, but still...

With a cursory glance on Google Earth...
The Pickering Lands are 47-50km from downtown Toronto by highway.
Pearson is 25km from downtown Toronto by highway, and 23km by rail (UPX).
YHM is 80-82km from downtown Toronto by highway.
Now, interestingly, YHM is 75km from Pearson, which is a bit closer to the GTA's economic centre of gravity and the existing logistics hub.
Meanwhile, Pickering is about 52km from Pearson.

So there's about 20-30kms of extra distance to reach YHM versus Pickering from Pearson or downtown Toronto, which I'd say translates to roughly 15-30 mins of additional travel time. But for an international airport, I think distances like that are more palatable. Not to mention we don't have to build everything from scratch here. The extra time/distance is also somewhat irrelevant if the primary goal is freight capacity. HxR might change the dynamic a bit, though.
 
Speaking of things Canada is great at doing, we study things to the death. The fact that a company has expressed interest in HSR between Toronto-Ottawa - Montreal only shows that there are many options to reduce traffic at Pearson.
 
sunnyside said:
I was going to say, YHM has been growing and is closest to the GTA of these three. Not to mention, it would be glad to accept even more growth. I don't see the relative benefit of building at Pickering instead, given both are in greenfield areas. Of course, it is in their local interest to advocate for it, but still...

With a cursory glance on Google Earth...
The Pickering Lands are 47-50km from downtown Toronto by highway.
Pearson is 25km from downtown Toronto by highway, and 23km by rail (UPX).
YHM is 80-82km from downtown Toronto by highway.
Now, interestingly, YHM is 75km from Pearson, which is a bit closer to the GTA's economic centre of gravity and the existing logistics hub.
Meanwhile, Pickering is about 52km from Pearson.

So there's about 20-30kms of extra distance to reach YHM versus Pickering from Pearson or downtown Toronto, which I'd say translates to roughly 15-30 mins of additional travel time. But for an international airport, I think distances like that are more palatable. Not to mention we don't have to build everything from scratch here. The extra time/distance is also somewhat irrelevant if the primary goal is freight capacity. HxR might change the dynamic a bit, though.
Click to expand...

Thing is. There are ~2 million people living east of Toronto for whom the only option is Pearson. Using Hamilton would involve even more travel through the heart of the GTA's urban core. The closest option heading east would be, ..., ???, Kingston (not sure if there is still scheduled service to this airport any more). I don't think a Pickering airport would be drawing from downtown Toronto as much as it would be drawing from the rest of the surrounding region. In particular I can see Pickering serving the tech hub in Markham.

That said I doubt we will see Pickering operational until the late 2030's or early 2040's, if at all. Pearson still has a lot of growth left in it.

For illustrative purposes. YYZ claims a catchment population of 8 million within a 1 hr drive of the airport, and saw 49.5 million passengers in 2018 (pre covid). That amounts roughly 6,000 passengers per capita, if we apply that metric to Pickering you'd wind up with an airport serving ~12 million passengers (caveats. YYZ would likely cannibalize much of those passenger numbers, however I didn't include the central and western portions of the GTA which would be within a 1 hr drive of Pickering and would bring up the passenger estimate), that would put Pickering somewhere between Edmonton/Calgary/Montreal airports.
 
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