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Pickering Airport (Transport Canada/GTAA, Proposed)

for anyone who lives east of Yonge Street, Hamilton is not going to be a very attractive option.

Plus don't forget, part of the rationale for Pickering is to close Buttonville, and consolidate all the general aviation flights there over to Pickering...

I don't think that anyone would disagree that Pearson has brought a lot of prosperity to both Mississauga and Brampton. Even a smaller airport in the east end would have a similar effect there.
 
Why not just expand Buttonville? Sure, that'd involve tearing up a fair bit of the office park and a few new residential neighbourhoods and a possible rerouting/tunnelling of the 404, but, what the hey.
 
well the GTA is expected to become hugely popular with international travelers.
 
Why not just expand Buttonville?

Good point, adma...I don't know all the details, but it's probably because the area around Buttonville airport is pretty built up, and they just foresee too many problems with any expansion plus addition of jets....
 
I wonder what transportation links the Pickering airport would require? Presumably, it would need a 400-series highway to connect it to the 401 (realizing that the site is next to the 407).
Two new freeways are proposed connecting the 407 to the 401 in Durham Region. They'll be built along with the 407 extension to the 115 - the EA is going on now. A new rail link to the city is part of the Pickering airport proposal too, mostly using existing corridors.

IMO, any new airport should be in the east end to balance things out - then again I live east of the GTA so I'm biased. The really smart thing to do is to build high speed rail east to Ottawa and Montreal, west to Detroit, and south to Niagara/Buffalo. If the feds and provinces got off their asses and built a proper train system, we might not even need a new airport.
 
If they are going to build another airport, they should build one and move only the private jets and air-cargo business to that airport. You don't need to much of a fancy airport for that.

Second, they could invest in a hi-speed rail link in the Ottawa Montreal Toronto corridor, and encouraging commuter traffic to the rail system (higher landing fees for smaller aircraft short-haul flights). Of course I am only promoting this one because -- I really like trains :eek:
 
for anyone who lives east of Yonge Street, Hamilton is not going to be a very attractive option.

But, if there is a HSR link, it wouldn't matter as much. Would probably take less time to get out to Pearson.
 
Don't forget part of MoveOntario 2020 will build rapid transit along Upper James to James Street in Hamilton. Think the proposed line goes from the downtown core to Rymal or Stone Church but the Airport will likely pressure the city to extend the rapid transit to the Airport perhaps compensates the transit. Doing that will let YHM passengers access to Hamilton's GO Station.

That or hopefully part of the Mid Niagara Peninsula proposal will call for high speed transit instead of a highway. Doing that will connect Niagara to Hamilton Airport and link up with Halton.
 
If we spent a few hundred million to get the Toronto-Montreal and Toronto-Ottawa trains down to a reliable 3.5 hours that run more often than 5 times a day, you could eliminate the need for airport expansion for decades. If you actually built a real high-speed train, you would never have to expand an airport again. Of course, it makes much more sense to spend billions of dollars, pave thousands of acres of land, and massively increase our carbon emissions to accommodate everyone by air. It's fair competition.

The point about it being ridiculous that the site can only handle 50 million people is totally right. Atlanta, Chicago, Heathrow, Frankfurt, and LA are all in roughly the same size class as Pearson, and they all handle far more people.
 
^But they offer service that in many instances trains simply can't offer.
 

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