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Pickering Airport (Transport Canada/GTAA, Proposed)

LOL. Anything to justify this airport.

"Point-to-point" means bypassing hubs (at least on one end). A concept which usually also means bypassing hub cities. An example of this would be Air Canada's Ottawa-London flight. Neither airport is a hub for Air Canada. Or, Norwegian's Hamilton-Dublin flight.

Focusing on pt-2-pt flights makes sense airports in smaller metros. They can attract service from different parts of the world. However, no airport is going to reach tens of millions of passengers without an anchor airline hubbing there.

This is how you know the Pickering airport folks are exaggerating. Just like when Mark argues that Pickering will keep 50-seaters to Sudbury going. See if that's working out for other cities with two airports.

Which, if Hamilton was also congested, or even more busy than it is now, I could jump on the Pickering bandwagon. Start having daily service to Hamilton from Major cities in Canada. Start having daily service from some major smaller cities in Ontario (Thunder Bay and Sudbury and possibly others). Then, after those have been running for a while, the congestion might happen. Then, and maybe then, Pickering will be need.

Til then, lets keep farming the airport.
 
Which, if Hamilton was also congested, or even more busy than it is now, I could jump on the Pickering bandwagon.

What got my heckles up is that Mark keeps conflating Durham’s interests with the region and even the country’s interest. He argues that Torontonians won’t drive 2 hrs to Hamilton. Most of the GTA’s population is not 2 hrs from Hamilton. He argues that without Pickering, the regional economy will stagnate. As though air traffic won’t migrate to Hamilton and Waterloo long before then. He talks about a chokehold on a third of Canadian passengers. But a third of the country’s passengers most definitely aren’t flying through YYZ.

Then there’s the exaggerations and falsehoods, which also set off my BS detector. LIke claiming this can be entirely privately financed, despite not claiming the same on their website, and also insisting that this entirely privately financed airport will be cheaper to operate from than Pearson. Or claiming that the airport will act as a reliever for Pearson, entirely on pt2pt flights., Or insisting that simply having more slots will enable 50 seat regional flights, despite those flights having no airline hub to feed, and a pilot shortage driving up aircraft sizes.
 
Hard truth: Even if the stars align, Pickering probably won't even finish planning for at least another 1-2 electoral cycles.

There's just a lot that needs to be done behind the scenes, and with the current environmental mood that can quickly cancel an airport in a fell swoop and the longer time it would take to get the permits and assessments arranged; the gambit it needs to run is long and hard.

Fundamentally, Pearson is also not at its absolute breaking point just yet- so a new airport can always be pushed to another day.
 
There's just a lot that needs to be done behind the scenes, and with the current environmental mood that can quickly cancel an airport in a fell swoop and the longer time it would take to get the permits and assessments arranged; the gambit it needs to run is long and hard.

It’s not just the farmland. It’s the bird sanctuary nearby that would make this a tough review.

I’m broadly skeptical on Pickering. But if it weren’t such a challenging proposal, I agree that there might be a case for Pickering to replace Billy Bishop and several GA airports (Buttonville, Oshawa, Markham). A multi-billion dollar alternative to Pearson is a real stretch.
 
Population Data from counties/municipalities 1 hr from Hamilton Airport (this excludes Buffalo or US Niagara Falls).

Haldimand-Norfolk 109,787
City of Hamilton 536,917
County of Brant: 134,000
Waterloo: 535,000
Oxford County: 110,000
Middlesex (London): 455,000
Niagara: 447,000
Wellington: 227,000
Perth: 77,000

There is no major airport servicing these regions, which account for over 2.5M people, all about an hour drive from Hamilton's airport. This region also includes London and Waterloo, decent sized financial and tech centres, both of which have no significant airport service.

Comparatively, the east side has Frontenac (100k), Hastings (136k), Prince Edward (25k), Northumberland (85k) and I guess Peterborough (135)? Even including Durham (600k), you're at 1/3 of the population and probably 1/5 or 1/6 the economic output.

There is no comparison to the East side from a population perspective, one of the reasons for Picking was a desire to move population to the less dense populated east side. If that is a policy priority then great, but let's not argue that Hamilton currently services more people and economic output.
 
If you could drive 100 km/h every single km. But realistically, 2 hours. I lived along that route for half of my life.
 
If you could drive 100 km/h every single km. But realistically, 2 hours. I lived along that route for half of my life.
That stretch of the 403 never congests. Congestion doesn't start until after 6 in Hamilton. Especially traffic that adds 45 minutes to the drive.

1:15 should be a very reliable drive time unless you fancy driving well below the speed limit.
 
But no one lives on the interchange of the 401, and the Airport isn't on 403. Door to door is close to 2 hours. Final statement.
 
But no one lives on the interchange of the 401, and the Airport isn't on 403. Door to door is close to 2 hours. Final statement.
The 1:17 is Downtown London to the airport parking lot.. click the link.

Sure if you are coming from far north-west London suburbs and drive the speed limit, maybe you are looking at 1.5 hours.. but 2 hours is nuts.
 
Population Data from counties/municipalities 1 hr from Hamilton Airport (this excludes Buffalo or US Niagara Falls).

Haldimand-Norfolk 109,787
City of Hamilton 536,917
County of Brant: 134,000
Waterloo: 535,000
Oxford County: 110,000
Middlesex (London): 455,000
Niagara: 447,000
Wellington: 227,000
Perth: 77,000

There is no major airport servicing these regions, which account for over 2.5M people, all about an hour drive from Hamilton's airport. This region also includes London and Waterloo, decent sized financial and tech centres, both of which have no significant airport service.

Comparatively, the east side has Frontenac (100k), Hastings (136k), Prince Edward (25k), Northumberland (85k) and I guess Peterborough (135)? Even including Durham (600k), you're at 1/3 of the population and probably 1/5 or 1/6 the economic output.

There is no comparison to the East side from a population perspective, one of the reasons for Picking was a desire to move population to the less dense populated east side. If that is a policy priority then great, but let's not argue that Hamilton currently services more people and economic output.

Much of Scarborough would be closer to Pickering than Pearson, add ~500k. Same with the communities in York Region east of the 400, add ~600k. 2.2 million people, fairly close the your Hamilton number.
 
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Much of Scarborough would be closer to Pickering than Pearson, add ~500k. Same with the communities in York Region east of the 400, add ~600k. 2.2 million people, fairly close the your Hamilton number.

Then why not expand an existing airport instead of opening up another one? If Pickering had been much higher, well, then it might make some sense.
 

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