It depends. I’m not clear on what you are collecting data about.
If you are trying to define the universe of passenger trips that are happening between Toronto and Quebec City - certainly there will be lots of people riding HFR Montreal-Quebec, so they ought to be in that universe.
But if you are trying to capture only trips that are in the universe of originating in the Pickering Airport catchment area, there will be fewer trips between that catchment area and Quebec City, versus trips to Ottawa or Montreal. So you could discount
I can’t imagine the business case for Pickering surviving on top of HFR, especially if the two are held to the same financing model and thresholds and the same cost recovery expectations.
Even $1B of that airport investment added to upgrade HFR would give a service that is fast and frequent enough that east enders would find preferable to a Pickering-Ottawa or Pickering-Montreal flight. That’s the gap in economics that would bring a 125 mph+, grade separated, almost HSRish quality to HFR instead of it being a slightly better than LRCish thing.
A further $2-3B with the right push to CN and CP, would fund enough RER capacity across the top or middle of the City so that access to Pearson from Markham and Durham would be very convenient, as well as meeting other needs.
Pearson will remain the hub for international and transocean flights, I can’t see much incentive for any airline (except maybe Air Canada, and only to a couple of destinations) to split this traffic across two airports. Getting people to Pearson for that traffic, and using VIA to reduce short haul flights, sure seems like a better strategy.
Having said that, it’s great that the Pickering data is brought up to date, if only so that we can try to level the playing field with HFR.
- Paul
By the numbers I can’t imagine an efficient transportation system with out both Pickering Airport and HFR.
The question is, how many shorthaul slots and passengers could be shifted from air to rail to free up airside capacity at Toronto Pearson, and could VIA take it?
Currently 4.1 million passengers take Via rail on the Toronto , Ottawa , Montreal line.
Of the 49.5 million passengers handled by Pearson, We have determined that an estimated 6.4 million people travelled by air between Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City in 2017, on 232 daily flights. The number of flights is important as they are using about 15% of Pearson’s slot capacity, carrying 12% of it current passengers flow.
Using the GTAA’s master plan forecast of 3.1 percent annual passenger growth means theoretically there might be an additional 5 million air passengers travelling between Toronto and Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City by its max point, 2036 (YYZs maximum airside capacity). Most of this growth would be achieved by upsized aircraft not by taking up additional slots.
Assuming that we followed the German model, which calls for a banned on local flights to save airport capacity for international flights and for which we have a reasonable same day rail service. That’s 11.4 million more via riders , for 15.5 yearly rail passengers.
Meanwhile at Pearson, which is already a level 3 slot allocated airport, the draconian action has just bought a bit more time on the passenger growth curve, about 2-4 years depending on which forecast you believe. More importantly it provided the slots to service the new routes to other parts of the world enabling more efficient point to point service.
Between 2014 to 2018 passenger numbers grew by 10 million, from 39 million to 49 million, this growth is well above projections and is accelerating.
So maxing out HFR to Ottawa and Montreal bought us another 2-4 years of Capacity before Pearson hits the slot wall ( this would shift it from 2028 to 2032 ), and the max passenger wall (70 -85 million, 2030- 2036)
Part of this assumes that smaller regional aircraft are banned from Pearson ( exec jets, RJs & Q400 service to Timmins, thunderbay etc ) to free up slot space. These would be Pickerings first customers assuming that at least one runway is open at the new Pickering airport by 2028.
These two to four years are more important that you might think, as it is the difference between rushing Pickering ( cutting corners) and doing it right, which will take a minimum of 10 years. Either way we need to start build Pickering now, and we need to wake up VIA to the issue and it’s possible roll. But the real question is , do we have the political will to do even half of what is needed?
