Toronto Pearson International Airport

[cd concept]

The GTA population growth is starting to sprawl out towards the Hamilton Niagara regions. There building high rise condos,hotels and maybe future offices getting built the downtown core. Showing growth in an area that developers though to be forbidden because of its industries. That's a trend that not going to stop with metrolinx in motion. The point is that the golden horseshoe is one of Canada's largest metropolis to the south. And will never lose population because its Canada's hub for immigration and commerce. Therefore should be treated like a major metropolis like Los Angeles and New York. Getting prepared to another airport or even another hockey team. In ten to fifteen years its expected to have more than 11,5 million people in that metropolis.

 

[gweed123]

What that says about the future Southern Ontario's regional airports. As you said these airports mostly feed into Toronto. I mentioned a few months ago that consolidation of these airports might be the answer, Hamilton, Waterloo, and London have a combined 219,000 aircraft movements and 946,000 passengers. Pooling all this into one airport could create a big enough market to attract an airline (even if the routes are duplicated by Toronto Pearson) and serve the South Western Ontario market. The only question would be which airport would become the new 'mega' airport.

That's a very interesting point. I wonder if a new airport either along Highway 8 between K-W & Hamilton would be a good location for that 'pooling of markets'. Western end of the GTHA, KWCG, Brantford, and to a lesser extent London could be served by that airport. Even more so if the eventual Toronto-London HSR line were routed through it.

 

[cd concept]

Your looking at the city population though, not the population of people nearby. For example, while Cleveland has dropped from 914,000 residents in 1950 to 396,000 in 2010, the greater Cleveland area has increased from 2.2 million to 2.9 million people in the same amount of time. However they all use the same airport!

I've quoted the same thing in my message. Why build to the east of the golden horseshoe when the population is going to sprout more to the north and west. Milton is the next place to experience mega growth. And its next to the Guelph, Kitchener Waterloo regions. And Hamilton Niagara to the South.
Yup! I think a new airport could be built between highway 8 or 6. Connecting metrolinx to it by rail or highway to it.

 

[gweed123]

Yup! I think a new airport could be built between highway 8 or 6. Connecting metrolinx to it by rail or highway to it.

Yup, looking at it a bit more closely, I think somewhere in the triangle between 8, 5, and 24 would work. There's the potential to extend the Cambridge BRT (and eventual Ion LRT) southeast along Highway 8 to the airport. There's also the potential of running GO service west from Aldershot, although a spur would probably be needed. And for highways, the occasionally-discussed Highway 424 would link the airport site to both the 401 and 403 (as well as KWC to Brantford).

 

[nfitz]

I've quoted the same thing in my message.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about you somewhat attributing reduction in air travel in some locations to reducing populations of some American cities. However there is no basis for the assumption that populations are reducing when you look outside of the relatively small urban area of US cities.

Why build to the east of the golden horseshoe when the population is going to sprout more to the north and west. Milton is the next place to experience mega growth. And its next to the Guelph, Kitchener Waterloo regions. And Hamilton Niagara to the South.

Perhaps because we already have general aviation airports to the west that can also handle some passenger (Hamilton and Waterloo-Wellington). Perhaps also because everyone will have known that this airport is coming for over half-a-century, so really no one is going to complain about it, except some very hard-core Nimbys who would complain about any land-use.

 

[gabe]

The GTA population growth is starting to sprawl out towards the Hamilton Niagara regions. There building high rise condos,hotels and maybe future offices getting built the downtown core. Showing growth in an area that developers though to be forbidden because of its industries. That's a trend that not going to stop with metrolinx in motion. The point is that the golden horseshoe is one of Canada's largest metropolis to the south. And will never lose population because its Canada's hub for immigration and commerce. Therefore should be treated like a major metropolis like Los Angeles and New York. Getting prepared to another airport or even another hockey team. In ten to fifteen years its expected to have more than 11,5 million people in that metropolis.

If you live in the Hamilton or Niagara region, it's cheaper and faster to fly out of Buffalo.

 

[cd concept]

If you live in the Hamilton or Niagara region, it's cheaper and faster to fly out of Buffalo.

Going through the border can be a pain. Most of the time they check the baggage. Then checking it again at the airport if your going to another country.

 

[BurlOak]

Going through the border can be a pain. Most of the time they check the baggage. Then checking it again at the airport if your going to another country.

Based on a sample size of 2, they never check baggage at the border. Flying out of Buffalo is a domestic flight (to Florida), so be there 1 hour before. Flying out of Toronto, it is international flight, so 2 hours before. The border crossing is also much faster than Customs at Pearson (without Nexus).

 

[diminutive]

Oh come now, poor selection of examples as all of these cities have suffered from the de-industrialization of the North East USA and have been in decline for decades. For example Cleveland has dropped 54% from a high of 914,000 residents in 1950 to 396,000 in 2010, Pittsburgh also has dropped 54% from it's high of 676,000 in 1950 to 305,704 in 2010, and Cincinnati has dropped 41% from it's high of 503,000 in 1950 to 296,000 in 2010. Given that it's hard not to attribute at least a significant part of the reduction of air traffic in these regions to the decline in population, not consolidation.

The declines at these airports are mostly in the past decade whereas de-industrialization mostly flattened out by the 90s. Plus, like nfitz said, the actual metro areas usually kept going (reflecting suburbanization).

What that says about the future Southern Ontario's regional airports. As you said these airports mostly feed into Toronto. I mentioned a few months ago that consolidation of these airports might be the answer, Hamilton, Waterloo, and London have a combined 219,000 aircraft movements and 946,000 passengers. Pooling all this into one airport could create a big enough market to attract an airline (even if the routes are duplicated by Toronto Pearson) and serve the South Western Ontario market. The only question would be which airport would become the new 'mega' airport.

The issue isn't so much whether you can slice and dice the Golden Horseshoe/SWOntario to make a new airport hub. Probably there's enough demand there in isolation.

But you have to look at it within the context of an area that already has a pretty decent hub at Pearson. You have to find an airline that is willing to invest in making a new-ish hub within an hour's flight time of Pearson and that'll be hard to do nowadays.

 

[rbt]

Based on a sample size of 2, they never check baggage at the border. Flying out of Buffalo is a domestic flight (to Florida), so be there 1 hour before. Flying out of Toronto, it is international flight, so 2 hours before. The border crossing is also much faster than Customs at Pearson (without Nexus).

Based on a sample size of about 15, they sometimes take the entire car apart including the panels off the doors and removing the seats from the vehicle. Then they'll leave you to reassemble everything yourself (having now been delayed by hours) after not finding anything. That was many years ago.

 

[cd concept]

That's telling them! You make one mistake by misleading the american customs office ,they'll crucify you !

 

[innsertnamehere]

no different than entering the US when flying.

Usually telling them the truth gets you through nice and easy. "what is your purpose of entering the US?" - I'm flying out of the Buffalo airport. "how long will you be in the US?" - just until my flight leaves. "are you carrying anything illegal, or anything you wish to declare"? - No. a photo of your license plate is taken, and on you go. Worst comes to Worst, your car gets pulled over and they check your trunk.

you are making crossing the border a much larger deal than it is. it is really not that big of a deal.

I cross the border one or two times a year typically, and never have issues.

 

[nfitz]

no different than entering the US when flying.

Usually telling them the truth gets you through nice and easy. "what is your purpose of entering the US?" - I'm flying out of the Buffalo airport. "how long will you be in the US?" - just until my flight leaves. "are you carrying anything illegal, or anything you wish to declare"? - No. a photo of your license plate is taken, and on you go. Worst comes to Worst, your car gets pulled over and they check your trunk.

you are making crossing the border a much larger deal than it is. it is really not that big of a deal.

I cross the border one or two times a year typically, and never have issues.

I've never had that much problem - but presumably there's enough photos of my plates going over and back on a frequent basis. Worst I've had is to go inside for 10 minutes because they were suspicious that my wife was Canadian and I had a work permit for the USA. As soon as they realised she was a US citizen by ancestry, and therefore had no reason for trying to sneak into the USA with me, they lost interest. I think on one occasion I've had to pop the trunk.

Now, I'm white, with an common name. Given how racist the USA still is, I'm sure my story would be different if I was black or Muslim!

 

[rbt]

I cross the border one or two times a year typically, and never have issues.

Yeah, it gets a little weird once you hit 10 to 15 times per year as a tourist through a variety of means (mostly flying, sometimes train or bus, rarely driving). Pretty certain they flagged my wife and I as a possible drug smugglers (they've done the same to an uncle of mine years prior). After the car thing, they also did strip searches at airport.

We go to Europe more often now than we used to.

 

[cd concept]

I believe if buffalo metropolitan didn't exist for sure we would have two major airports and two major hockey teams for the size of are metropolis. Hamilton would of taken up the slack for the airport and a hockey team. After all the two main main settlements in the golden horseshoe were Toronto and Hamilton.