WILL TORONTO HAVE CANADA'S RISKIEST AIRPORT?

It's a distinction that few civic leaders would welcome: if Porter Airlines' proposal to expand Billy Bishop Airport to handle jetliners goes ahead, this city might be home to Canada's most dangerous major airport.

A new study released by the Greater Waterfront Coalition (GWC) on Monday, July 6, lays out a wide range of safety concerns. How big must the marine exclusion zones be if the runway is extended into the harbour and jets are allowed? Will jets, which descend at a lower angle than the turboprops now used by Porter, come too close to boats to be safe? What about the effects of "wake turbulence"? Will the "wingtip vortices" and air disturbances created during takeoffs and landings endanger canoeists and kayakers nearby?

Island airport expansion nothing new, but gas guzzling CS100s go too far

Council’s decision Tuesday, April 1, to move forward with further study of Porter Airlines’ Island airport expansion plan isn’t the first time in the airport’s 80-year history that talk of getting bigger has brought political blood to a boil. 

The difference this time: it’s hard to overstate what a massive change the CS100s Porter is now proposing to fly out of Billy Bishop would represent in the airport’s development. 

Private pilots say Porter’s pushing them out of island airport

A group of private pilots who fly out of Toronto’s island airport have turned to the Federal Court, claiming the local port authority has failed in its oversight role by allowing Porter Airlines to evict them from its hangars.

There are no hangars devoted to general aviation on the island, so many private pilots, flight schools and other businesses who use Toronto’s Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport rent space from the airport’s main tenant, Porter Airlines.

Jet repulsion

Waterfront Toronto officials are loath to admit it. The agency that’s been orchestrating a futuristic makeover of the water’s edge doesn’t want to piss off Rob Ford, especially when money’s running out.

But Porter’s expansion plan to fly jets out of the Billy Bishop Toronto Centre Airport is smelling a lot like that backdoor scheme concocted in 2011 by Mayor Ford’s brother, Doug, to fast-track monorails, Ferris wheels and shopping malls in the port lands.

Design for Democracy: Parks over planes, planes over people

"The island and our waterfront are public assets, and we must not turn over these public assets to narrow private interests -- not to a casino, not to a mega-mall operator, and not to an expanded industrial-scale airport."

- Trinity-Spadina MPP Rosario Marchese

One of my great theatrical delights is to watch the cast of councillors hash out the most pressing issues of our time in Toronto's City Hall.

Cool your jets

1. The runway extension being proposed would have to be longer than advertised.

Island airport boosters laughed when opponent Adam Vaughan declared that lengthening the main runway by 168 metres on each end amounts to paving the lake. For a little perspective: that’s roughly the length of four football fields. But that’s only the half of it. As we speak, Transport Canada is considering changing its “runway end safety area” regs, which would require extending the runway further into the lake, probably by a few hundred more feet.

Rob Ford straps in for jet fight

Mayor Rob Ford is on board with Porter Airlines’ push to expand Billy Bishop Airport, telling reporters on Thursday he sees no downside to the proposal that critics say could ruin the waterfront.

 

A day earlier, the upstart airline announced plans to purchase up to 30 Bombardier jet planes, which are currently banned from flying out of the island airport. The aircraft would allow the company to serve new destinations that are too far for its current turboprop fleet, but to do so the jet ban would have to be lifted and the airport’s runways extended further into the lake. 

Pushback against Porter begins

Councillors and at least one community group are vowing to fight plans to expand operations at Toronto’s island airport.

 

At a press conference Wednesday, Porter Airlines announced plans to purchase up to 30 CS100 jet planes, which would allow the company to add more than a dozen destinations to the list of 19 cities it serves. Locations the company is eyeing include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, Miami, and Nassau, in the Bahamas.

Smoke on the waterfront

The scene at Eireann Quay over the last month or so – signs, banners, lots of chanting, even more shouting – has deviated little from your textbook picket line. It's the location, it seems, that immediately comes across as striking in this case.

The in-your-face visibility is ideal, for one thing. After all, the entry route to Billy Bishop City Airport can be a natural urban chokepoint, even when there isn't a protest swarming the asphalt. Imagine the snaking, stalled lines of traffic inching toward Bathurst after a string of Q400s touch down, rudely welcoming ill-timed Torontonians home from less congested locales. If publicity is the ultimate goal of COPE's strike action against Porter Airlines, now in its seventh week, the captive - if grumbly – audience provided by the area's slap-dash urban engineering can't hurt, either.

Island airport needs own police force, Toronto Port Authority says

The Toronto Port Authority wants hired guns to police the island airport.

The TPA’s proposal, which is almost unheard of in Ontario, includes staffing the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport with nine armed special constables between 6 a.m. and midnight seven days a week.

The TPA says it would use the constables to assist investigations, respond to alarm calls and enhance current security services.