Park or Planes?

by YQNA

Imagine New Yorkers being asked if they want a city airport instead of Central Park. The answer would surely be no. Recently citizens in Chicago, Berlin, Edmonton and Santa Monica were facing that question – a small airport or a big park – and they all favoured parks over airports.

Now Toronto is facing the same question. We are critically short of parks and recreation, especially downtown. Losing the Rail Deck Park would make it worse. The Island Airport is stagnant and looking for investors, hoping to resume commercial flights. Its lease to use this publicly-owned land runs out in 12 years.

It is time to review Port Toronto’s industrial use of 215 acres of valuable land on our Waterfront. Does a city airport fit into Toronto, the fastest growing city in North America? Is it even needed, now that we have a 25-minute ride with UP Express from Union Station to Pearson Airport? Will a great recreational space by the lake serve future generations best and become an urban treasure like Central Park?

YQNA wanted to learn more about the options and invited Brian Iler of CommunityAir as our guest speaker. Feel free to share his illustrated presentation from our May meeting.

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1 comment

annick aubert May 21, 2021 - 3:48 pm

This presentation deserves to be challenged…
1. We already have a park on the Island
2. there may be a 25 minute ride to Pearson but
3. the wait for clearance before boarding your plane, is just a minute or 2 at Billy Bishop, 45 minutes or more at Pearson..
4. Walking through Billy Bishop is also just a few minutes, it can take 30 more minutes after security clearance at Pearson to board your plane.
5. Rapid transit in the Windsor-Quebec City corridor has been promised for over 50 by rapid trains, we are not even talking about it anymore.
6. Suggesting that ORNGE could safely be operating from Pearson is wrong …. Suggesting that “stabilized patients may be brought just as quickly by ambulance on either Lakeshore or the Gardiner is absolutely not true,traffic is slow on both these arteries !!!!!! Patients should be rushed to hospital, not wait in traffic !!!!
7. Community Aire on their website claims that the Gardiner, Lakeshore and the Airport pollute .. the above presentation omitted to mention this !!!
As is often said : Let’s talk .

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