Airbus330

I say, good for Bob Deluce. I wish them well and I hope it's a great success. Toronto downtown deserves this service.

passport

Does this have any implications, positive or negative, for AC Jazz?

I rarely fly to YYZ when travelling to Toronto and always appreciated the conveninece of arriving downtown (which is usually my final destination).

Hogtowner

I know that my opinion will be in the minority here.....but it is still a free country. (Just!)

This decision sucks - the 29 councillors who voted for this have sold out our city and its citizens for a few pieces of promised silver. It's a retrograde decision that harkens back to the bad old days in the 60s when the city tried to ram expressways through old neighbourhoods. We seem condemned to repeat our history.

[Full disclosure: my brother is a private pilot and my parents live on Queen's Quay, so I've heard both sides of this discussion...a few times. I live in the High Park area.]

The following excerpt is from John Barber's column in Friday's Globe:

>>It [city council] even managed to find a way to make all Torontonians pay for the new bridge -- something it previously vowed never to do and something no private financiers have agreed to do (because the bridge is uneconomic; it will never pay for itself).

It did so by agreeing to pay the Toronto Port Authority $67-million in subsidies over the next 10 years to settle the authority's lawsuit against city taxpayers -- providing almost to the nickel the cash flow the TPA will need to build its bridge and a new terminal.

The fact that the port authoritarians deserve none of our money, and that city council showered them with tens of millions overnight -- in total secrecy -- becomes just another minor scandal along the way.

The real tragedy is that council is willing to jeopardize a historic opportunity to reclaim the central waterfront in order to prop up a bankrupt little airport that would have disappeared years ago if the free market had any say in the matter -- if it were a private enterprise, as opposed to a political football kept alive by entrenched vested interests with easy access to government subsidies.<<

I happen to think that the expansion is no sure thing, and that the sticking point will be getting approval to get the bridge built. A friend of mine is a downtown lawyer type who happens to sail. He said that quite of a few of his fellow sailors - some, like him, lawyers - are p*ssed that the Western Gap will be plugged up with a draw-bridge. They are looking into whether the Coast Guard needs to give approval to the bridge, because its operation would affect navigable waters.

Last I looked the folks at RCYC and the other yacht clubs are not exactly short of money or influence.

I'd be prepared to bet a round of drinks at The Docks that they don't break ground for the bridge in 2003, and the longer the anti-expansion people are able to delay the bridge the better the odds will be that it never happens.

Anyway, flame away....I've got my asbestos undies on

[This message has been edited by Hogtowner (edited 11-29-2002).]

Fly Boy

As a voting member of RCYC I certainly hope that whatever they do doesn't create complications with the Western gap. That bridge would be a disaster in the making. All the LORC races etc in the summer would be frustrating if it required commuting via the other gap or queueing for a drawbridge. There are at least 3 inner-harbour yacht clubs that actively race, and each has several classes of fleets. Although in fairness, one advantage of the Eastern gap is you can sail through it on Autohelm or with a Loran, although I tend to prefer manual given the traffic and narrowness.

[This message has been edited by Fly Boy (edited 11-29-2002).]

Bytepusher

Hard to say if it happens, it really depends on how they decide to respond to Deluce's Regco, compete directly or compete with fares exYYZ, of late they've been behaving like they would rather not operated from YTZ at all. Flight frequencies are way down from what they were 5 years ago and they've made the first morning departures late enough that you can no longer fly from YTZ and reliably make a 9:00AM downtown meeting in YUL or YOW.

Shareholder

City Council approved the bridge link to the Island yesterday, and thus based on an earlier deal with the Ports Authority, it now appears the Island Airport can move ahead with plans to increase service. [JAZZ has recently cancelled its service to YUL from here.]

This has been very controvercial and opponents to the expansion of service vow to make it an issue at the next municipal election.

From the TORONTO STAR:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?G32225C05


[This message has been edited by Shareholder (edited 06-25-2003).]

Shareholder

The recent crash of a light private plane off Toronto Island Airport has launched discussion again on safety and potential "disaster" scenarios if scheduled services are increased:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?L12C33435

http://makeashorterlink.com/?K14C36435

tracon

It would be "safer" to have a "disaster" at YTZ than at YYZ. At least at the island there is a 90% chance a plane crash will end up in the water. If yesterdays crash happened at Pearson who knows which building or highway it would have ended up in.

Virginia Emery

**** those squatters. The Toronto Island should be a public park, PERIOD.

Shareholder

Yes, it is often forgotten that YYZ is -- along with YUL and YWG -- one of the few large city airports to be so close to the city is serves. Almost every take-off and landing path is over residential or industrial land, so you are correct in noting the Island location is actually a safer one for those one the ground. But hey, why let facts get in the way of politics?

Bytepusher

Or worse (and more likely) Buttonville, I occasionally work in a building that was hit by a plane that botched an approach at Buttonville...


[This message has been edited by Bytepusher (edited 07-09-2003).]

Hogtowner

I still think the airport expansion is no sure thing. There are a lot of powerful poeple who will be inconvenienced by a bridge (see my earlier post) and they will push as hard as they can to delay and fillibuster the proceedings.

Also if YYZ, YUL and YWG are airports that are considered very close to the cities they serve, what does that make the Island airport? If you bank left instead of right when taking off to the east you'll be in the trading rooms at First Canadian Place.

How's Chicago been doing since Daley closed their downtown, lakeside airport? The city's economy hadn't collapsed...

Shareholder

Meggs Field was never a major airport serving the city after WWII, so not the same thing at all. And ORD would fall into the same category as YYZ vis a vis its proximity to the city. As for turning towards the city after take-off, while it could occur, it is prohibited and not a fly zone for Island Airport ops.

Bytepusher

Poor comparison, Meigs was a relatively small GA field with no commercial operator and Chicago already has a) Midway and b) direct subway connections to Midway and O'Hare. The main impact it's had has been on the organ transplant program at the downtown hospital (I forget the name) that was using Meigs for Medevac flights...

I don't hold out much hope for renewal at YTZ either, for some of the reasons you cite. To bad really since virtually everything the airport's opponents say against it is an outright lie or at least taking liberties with the truth...

If we really wanted to improve the waterfront and get something like Chicago has we'd exproriate and dynamite any highrise built south of the railway tracks since 1985...since that seems unlikely I suggest the better approach is to admit that the central waterfront from Jarvis to Stadium is what it is, an overdeveloped urban wasteland...We don't need more parkland, we already have 2X to 3X the land in parks that any comparitive city has, we just do a rotten job in using them spending -2X to -3X per capita on programs and upkeep than other cities. Look at what's been done with the Downsview site...yah we need more parks like that...

Airbus330

In "The Star" article, it says: "Weather could have been a central role in the crash, said Enns. A short time before Gregg's plane crashed, an Air Canada Jazz flight made two attempts to land but because of dense fog aborted landing and flew back to Ottawa."

Why would that aircraft not reroute to YYZ instead of flying all the way back to YOW?

[This message has been edited by Airbus330 (edited 07-10-2003).]