Back in 2003, a battle raged on Toronto’s waterfront over whether a bridge to the Island Airport should be built. Advocates for the airport claimed it was about safety. Waterfront communities opposed to the airport argued the bridge was a Trojan horse to facilitate a vast expansion of commercial passenger flights.
In a press release on October 16, 2003, then Ports Toronto CEO Lisa Raitt stated:
"The fixed link is a public safety issue. The need for a bridge to get emergency equipment to the airport quickly was identified by an intergovernmental committee almost 10 years ago." said Ms. Raitt. "In the event of an emergency, it could take up to two hours to get the appropriate equipment over to the island and that's not acceptable."
When the bridge was cancelled in 2005, Porter commenced its operations from the Airport, nevertheless.
It was never about safety.
Now, Ports Toronto is playing the same game, arguing that forthcoming regulations require the City to urgently approve major landfill at each end of the Island Airport runway to build runway end safety areas (RESAs).
A roadmap for how the City intends to handle the request will be debated at City Council’s Executive Committee on October 1.
Should the City jump, because Ports Toronto says “Jump”?
If this was about safety, Ports Toronto would have acted years ago to address the deficient safety issues. It has long known that runway end safety areas reduce the real risk of an airplane overshooting the runway and, at the Island Airport, ending up in deep water.
The risk is real: over a 20-year period (1990-2010), according to Transport Canada, there were 268 runway end excursion events in Canada.
In 2005 Air France flight 358 departed the end of the runway at Pearson and came to rest in a ravine. If that had occurred at the Island Airport, the aircraft would have plunged into water deep enough to result in numerous fatalities.
Two years later the Transportation Safety Board recommended 300 metre RESAs.
Transport Canada took until 2021 to require 150 metre RESAs for the Island Airport be in place by 2027.
Given Ports Toronto’s (and Transport Canada’s) extremely lackadaisical approach to this safety issue, our City should not be bullied, and should take the time to fully examine all the issues that this request raises.
What is the downside, if the major landfill of our waterfront is not approved in time and the airport must close?
Not much.
Porter has been losing serious money at the Airport $19 million in 2017, $40M in 2018, and $35M in 2019, and has already moved much of its business to Pearson. The Island Airport’s business, as a result, is significantly less than it was. The Union-Pearson Express has made it as convenient to reach Pearson, where there are far more flight choices.
Would the City’s economy be affected? Most of the airport’s economic activity would simply transfer to Pearson. And economies of scale suggest one airport is more efficient than two.
The upside is potentially huge.
210 acres of spectacular waterfront property becomes available for public use. Converting it to parkland, as the City’s Official Plan requires, would increase the size of the Island Park by two thirds.
Suddenly, access to the Island becomes easier, with the Airport tunnel and ferry.
And we begin to address the extreme shortage of parkland in downtown Toronto.
The chronic irritant of aircraft noise on our waterfront disappears. It has severely affected concerts at the Waterfront’s Music Garden.
The threatened negative impact on the full revitalization of the Port Lands is gone.
And the health hazard of Ultra Fine Particles, which a recent University of Toronto study concluded are emitted at extremely high levels by aircraft at the Airport, is eliminated.
The Airport lands are far too valuable to our City to be used for an airport. That’s why downtown airports have closed in Chicago, Edmonton and Berlin. Santa Monica’s will close soon.
It’s time to join them.
Brian Iler is a lawyer, a founder of NoJetsTo and spokesperson for Parks not Planes.
Sandford Borins is Professor Emeritus of Public Management at the University of Toronto
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