Marc Lostracco in Torontoist (rapidly becoming one of my favourite bloggers due to his intelligent, witty and well-researched posts) has a great post today about the rogue federal beast that won't die - the City Centre Airport.
Porter Airlines, despite the opposition of Toronto City Council and most Torontonians, have gotten permission from the federal government to operate 10 turboprop flights a day from the Island Airport.In case you don't know... having an airport in the middle of your waterfront that you're trying to redevelop into a recreational wonderland (of which cycling would be a huge part of) is not good. 10 departures a day means 10 arrivals per day as well. 20 flights a day.
Pro-airport advocates (who all seem to be pilots, political inepts like Jane Pitfield, do-nothing Senators like Jerry Grafstein, and business execs with too much money to go to Pearson to fly like the rest of us) say that the issue is something called environmental justice - saying that closing the Island Airport would send those flights and pollution (they admit that the planes will bring pollution to the waterfront) to Pearson, where it will affect people living around Pearson.
Pearson has 1200 arrivals and departures every day, mostly huge jumbo jets. Adding Island Airport traffic of 20 arrivals and departures is a 1.6% increase... not even factoring in that Island planes are not jumbo jets.
Obviously, adding this air traffic at Pearson is akin to smoking 102 cigarettes a day instead of 100. You're still getting cancer, Einstein.
Since the city's hands are bound with respect to shutting down the airport (since Harper and the Conservatives seem to be as idiotic as we all thought they would be) and turning the land into parkland or sustainable neighbourhoods, here's my advice to Mayor Miller, City Council and Community AIR to help bankrupt the Airport, Robert Deluce, Porter Airlines, and the Toronto Port Authority (all different heads of the same beast, in my opinion):
Take the tiny parking lot at the foot of Bathurst (which looks to be too small to support 10 turboprop flights a day anyways) and make it smaller. Hell, eliminate it entirely. Take Bathurst south of Queens Quay and close it. Turn it into parkland. Make the airport inaccessible.
Discuss this topic and a lot more on the BikingToronto Forum
