micheal_can
Senior Member
One thing no one is thinking about, or saying.... This is in the Greenbelt. With what happened with Ford and the developers, how could this be argued as any more of a good idea?
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Pickering Airport (Transport Canada/GTAA, Proposed)
- Thread starter wyliepoon
- Start date
kEiThZ
Superstar
They call it a GA airport. But all their rhetoric is about how it will compete with Pearson. Trojan horse.
The only way this airport makes sense to me in the short or medium term is as a consolidated GA airport, combining Buttonville and Oshawa, with some freight operations thrown in. If both the Buttonville and Oshawa sites can be redeveloped as part of this, then unlocking those two pretty massive parcels of land, not to mention removing height restrictions on everything around them, is worth it.
If you want to get really bold, you offer CP some land within the airport grounds to build a new yard and intermodal facility, on the condition that they abandon all or a significant part of their Agincourt Yard. A one-stop extension of Line 2 into a massive new Northeast Scarborough high density cluster on former railway lands would be a pretty great city building project.
If you want to get really bold, you offer CP some land within the airport grounds to build a new yard and intermodal facility, on the condition that they abandon all or a significant part of their Agincourt Yard. A one-stop extension of Line 2 into a massive new Northeast Scarborough high density cluster on former railway lands would be a pretty great city building project.
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
I like that concept of moving Agincourt out to Pickering a lot
crs1026
Superstar
Moving Agincourt yard and redeveloping makes eminent sense.... but moving it to the Pickering Airport property seems a bit impractical. Would require some new access tracks to/from the Belleville Sub. Very unlikely that CP would accept a stub-end arrangement. Lots of work to evaluate and acquire land for the necessary access trackage.
- Paul
crs1026
Superstar
PS Down the rabbit hole I went.... and this idea of relocating the CP line struck me as far more attractive than my first comment above.
Putting aside any topographic hurdles, and potential land acquisition problems, it's potentially only a small amount - maybe 5-6 kms - of added track miles if one assumes that a section of the Belleville Sub can be abandoned. Especially if the Staines-Neilson connecting track is abandoned also.
There's even an old spur off the Belleville Sub that could form the eastern jog.
Intriguing.
- Paul
- Paul
Putting aside any topographic hurdles, and potential land acquisition problems, it's potentially only a small amount - maybe 5-6 kms - of added track miles if one assumes that a section of the Belleville Sub can be abandoned. Especially if the Staines-Neilson connecting track is abandoned also.
There's even an old spur off the Belleville Sub that could form the eastern jog.
Intriguing.
- Paul
- Paul
Thanks for the leg work on this! I was thinking something similar in terms of connections to and from CP's existing trackage. You'd have to figure that an intermodal facility with airside access, easy 407 access, and very low land acquisition costs would be quite attractive to CP. Not to mention the revenue generated from selling Agincourt.
The one-stop subway extension could be mostly cut-and-cover (assuming it's built in coordination with the overall development), and would be a perfect application of TIF to help pay for it.
To make things even better, the abandoned section of the Belleville Sub could be a perfect on-the-cheap extension of either the Sheppard Line, and independent LRT line, or a future GO line.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Having a major intermodal hub where the primary access is a toll highway might be problematic.
just east of the creek
Active Member
Various groups have been battling for years to preserve class 1 farmland from an unneeded airport. Why would we think that a cp intermodal yard ( with or without an airport) would be any better? We are witnessing the exact same thing happening in Halton Region now, although to be fair to the railway, this is on land acquired by the railway years and years ago and planned for, as it is adjacent to an existing line.
There may be good reasons for the concept of moving Agincourt ( as qweed123 advances) but perhaps to a different location
There may be good reasons for the concept of moving Agincourt ( as qweed123 advances) but perhaps to a different location
crs1026
Superstar
I'm not sure that CP needs an intermodal yard specifically - but they may need some number of acres for a conventional yard or blockswapping area.
The Agincourt property is greatly underused and its configuration limits development - the portion that is currently surplus is located in the middle where one can't redevelop. So moving what exists at Agincourt to farmland might result in a new yard that is half the acreage of the current one - thereby unlocking as much as twice the amount of development property than it consumes in farmland. I'm not eager to lose farmland, but that particular swap might actually be advantageous. If the development has to go somewhere, and Agincourt stays where it is, we may lose more farmland that way.
I agree that farmland is needed and a Pickering of airport isn't.... but the moment something is going to get built on that land, it's open season to examine what it's best used for. I'm just not confident that the leave-it-alone factions will carry the day.
- Paul
The Agincourt property is greatly underused and its configuration limits development - the portion that is currently surplus is located in the middle where one can't redevelop. So moving what exists at Agincourt to farmland might result in a new yard that is half the acreage of the current one - thereby unlocking as much as twice the amount of development property than it consumes in farmland. I'm not eager to lose farmland, but that particular swap might actually be advantageous. If the development has to go somewhere, and Agincourt stays where it is, we may lose more farmland that way.
I agree that farmland is needed and a Pickering of airport isn't.... but the moment something is going to get built on that land, it's open season to examine what it's best used for. I'm just not confident that the leave-it-alone factions will carry the day.
- Paul
micheal_can
Senior Member
Height restrictions...
Airports have height restrictions on buildings for the approaches. So,now you put a new airport in a built up area. This will cause many issues including the fact that the land becomes worth less. And then there is the noise. Now residential property values plummet due to the noise. No self respecting councilor would want that to happen
lenaitch
Senior Member
One of the realities inherent in an urban area of over 7 million people that is also a major commerce transportation hub that trains, trucks and planes are needed to service it and support its economy. Everybody talks about densification but I doubt anybody would advocate for placing any of these hubs in the downtown to save greenfields. Both railways could move their hubs to Bancroft, but it would result in more truck driving longer distances to fill GTHA shelves and driveways.
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
Honestly, what is the alternative if we accept that Agincourt should move, and try to avoid using Pickering, or greenbelt lands in general?
It seems to me like the options for CP boil down to:
It seems to me like the options for CP boil down to:
- roughly Pickering, if no necessarily the airport lands
- staying at Agincourt
- going much farther east, somewhere east of Oshawa and probably past Newcastle
micheal_can
Senior Member
Why should the rail yard move? To make way for people to play pilot? Not worth it.