Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. There I'm sufficiently calm to talk about the TPA again.

So the Feds cut about a billion dollars and somehow the TPA doesn't get the axe?

Calling it federally-controlled assumes that the federal government is able or willing to exercise any control over it.

You get it right on in your final paragraph, when you refer to it as a rogue agency, which is my preferred term for it.

I don't think people are so worried about a very small number of planes flying in but that it will just be the thin end of a very large wedge, one the city won't be able to stop once it's start pushing its way in.

I wonder who operates the ferry... fingers crossed it's local ;)

miles - Actually the City will be able to stop it - the restriction on total movements is a tripartite agreement. The TPA can't change it on their own. Even to max out the current limit Deluce would have to persuade existing airport users to go elsewhere.

But Miller doesn't want even the crap service Air Canada Jazz used to provide, he wants none at all. Instead of (relatively) quiet and fuel efficient turboprops, he wants us to fly in Westjet and AC's jets, then get taxis to downtown.

If Miller wants people to use Pearson (which will soon charge $20 up from $15) he should start going to GO Transit board meetings and pressing for GO to replace the private Blue22 proposal as the preferred fast link to downtown using GO Transit fares rather than SNC-Lavalin's extortionate proposal, with a stop at Weston to help out the local residents who will have roads closed and a stop at Bloor to link with TTC.

Now that Deluce has his Air Operator's Certificate, the TPA and Air Canada should stop the stupid fighting and get their services going. A Porter monopoly replacing an AC monopoly is not the answer, and competition might force AC to purchase new Downsview-built Bombardiers to keep up with Deluce's newer model.

The island airport was Toronto's original airport, not the money eating monster in Mississauga (see the $20 improvement fee article). It shouldn't be news to anyone that the island airport is there... look folks deal with it.

The Miller crew are clueless how to manage the TPA, because they are simply clueless. That's the problem with idealogues. They are committed to doing things, not because they're right or wrong, because that's all they know how to do.

As to the rail link to the Money Eating Mississauga Monster, there's whole neighbourhoods opposed to more high-speed trains barrelling down the tracks. Besides, the train service will be an abject failure, because it assumes you want to go downtown and no where else.

Pitfield may actually be right, the people that the big planes fly over every day don't give a rat's about some whiners that live downtown complaining about a few overgrown mix masters!

This NIMBYism plane and simple!

I live in a basement apartment in Parkdale. I still hear jets on their way to Pearson. I'd really like to avoid adding more noise pollution by directing more planes to the Island airport. Is that too much to ask? Yes, I understand business is an important part of our economy, but to cater to the rich with luxury flaunts your wealth in the face of the working class. Why can't businessmen fly into and out of Pearson just like the rest of us and take a fricken airport cab to and from their downtown destination? What makes them so special that they deserve to add more noise pollution to my neighbourhood just so they can get a short puddle-jumper to Ottawa? Who, really, benefits from this?

I feel for the folks who live directly underneath flight paths in Mississauga, but I don't feel [b]that[/b] badly. My various homes [as a tenant] in North York have all been rocked by the sound of jets coming in.

Jane Jacobs believed that expansion of the Island Airport was the single biggest threat to a revitalized waterfront plan. The bottom line is that we don't need the airport for commercial flights, and most of us have never used it anyway.

The convenience for a tiny group of charter and business fliers hardly outweighs going ahead with a monstrously unpopular plan. If we don't build it now, I hardly believe we'll regret it in the future, which I can't say for the reverse.

Porter Airlines says that their service will be targeted predominantly to business travelers who will enjoy being closer to the financial district. Lucky for them. I hardly think the inconvenience of a Pearson commute is stifling business in Canada's financial capital. Hey, have we built that rail link yet?

It's also not a ragtag group of grumpy Island residents opposing the plan, as alluded to in a post above by Dave. Killing the bridge was supposed to, in turn, stop any expansion of the airport for commercial flights. The public wasn't aware that secret government deals to continue airport expansion were happening even as the feds were canceling the bridge contracts. There's a reason they marked the confidential document as particularly sensitive (a "Protect In Full" classification).

By the way, Jane Pitfield voted to kill the bridge back in 2003. Hmm...it's almost like she's running for Mayor or something.

All that aside, let me get back to the main focus of the article: is there anybody who believes that the TPA isn't an abysmal mess and shouldn't be handed over to the city?

As a Torontonian, you may be surprised that I'm not against the airport expansion. If you compare with Pearson, it has the highest airport fees charged to airlines. Also, there are only few major airlines in Canada, if you want a more competitive fare when traveling, more competition is the only way to go. Canada needs at least 3 more major carriers in order to reduce the monopoly of Westjet and Air Canada.

The airport expansion is a very good solution to battle this problem.

Problem with graphics like that: they don't actually mean anything. People who make decisions about Canada's transportation system, like the minister of transport, don't respond to neat dark red graphics. They respond to hard facts and figures. And the opponents of the airport don't seem to have much in the way of those; at least, not in the way of any real facts. I've posted the facts of the matter, here and on more forums than I can easily count. Little matters such as the 150000 people who live in the high noise impact area of Pearson International Airport. Matters such as the 3000+ medical flights Toronto City Centre Airport handles every year. Matters such as the measurable and measured difference between the hum of turbo-props going over water, and the scream of jets flying over schools and homes.

Now, I claim that if Porter Airlines succeeds, it has the potential to reduce both the overall level of noise and air pollution, and the human impact of noise and pollution in the GTA. I have census data, fuel consumption statistics, sound and video recordings, GIS maps of the noise contours, photos and maps to back up what I say. Do you have anything behind that B-horror-movie poster graphic?

I would have posted a map of the noise contours instead, but the article was about the TPA's rogue, destructive behaviour and the City's powerlessness in relation to its own port. Plus, I wasn't trying to cure insomnia. ;-)

Nobody is trying to stop Medevac chopper flights or flying lessons or the private plane terminals at the Island Airport. What bothers people is more than the noise comparisons and pollution an expanded airport may or may not bring; it's about effective and forward-thinking public use of both our waterfront and our public parks (the Islands), and who's being allowed to make those decisions to benefit which entities.

The TPA and Porter Airlines deal is primarily a business decision that ignores both public urban planning initiatives and the overall (and future) use of our waterfront, which is absolutely unacceptable. It is strictly a business decision for a small set of people, but has very large ramifications for the City as a whole, some positive, many negative. It is also a permanent change.

I'd hazard a guess that if these all-important business travelers actually took public transit, the rail link to Pearson would have been built decades ago. If the TPA was actually run by the city and forced to consider non-commercial interests as well (as it should be), the Porter deal and the defunct Bathurst Bridge would barely have warranted discussion.

Our waterfront is sickeningly scarred with the marks of poor planning and suffocating private-sector development. It's amazing that this issue has progressed so far and at such expense at the hands of a malignant agency with no sense of civic responsibility. It is not supposed to be like this.

Marc in comment 14 performs the usual dodge of airport enemies - since it only benefits a small group of people, and has negative effects on most, we should kill it.

Both claims are false. First, the small group cited is not very small. Business people would surely use the airport, but so would (as mentioned) tourists, as well as everyday joes who are flying short distances to see their families. I haven't checked recently, but last I booked a ticket AC was running something like 7 flights to Montreal a day, so there is clearly demand for the route. And if given a choice between a $50 cab ride and a subway and a ferry (or bridge, natch), the latter may be more attractive (depending on pricing, etc.). More to the point - the entire city benefits from increased business activity. Enemies make it seem like this is irrelevant.

Second, the group inconvenienced is actually quite small, if not entirely negligible or incapable of accounting for. As demonstrated elsewhere, these planes are no louder or dirtier - in fact far quieter and cleaner - than the alternative, and there is little evidence that they would prevent an enjoyable use of the waterfront.

Third, who gives a toss what Jane Jacobs thought. The appeal to the deified authority is still an appeal to authority and a logical error, thanks.

Fourth, the philosophy on display here is quite bothersome. The starting point is that you can't do anything unless you can show that it directly benefits some other group, which group is usually defined as "people who never fly and live in suburbs distant from the islands". Or left wing blog writers who have decided that attacking the lifestyle of the haves is an preferable substitute for standing up for the have nots.

Rather, the approach should be that you are allowed to do anything you want to do provided it does not do undo harm. On this measure, there is no compelling reason to hold up Porter Air (see the eloquent comment directly above: hammer hits nail, squarely).

And oh, I like the TPA. Its the only thing that prevents the captured politicians at City Hall
running the port to the exclusion of the national interest. The debate the last five years has been that we need global cities to continue to attract the immigrants, capital and R&D investments that are fuelling increases in the national standard of living, and the Feds have backed that up with cash. Maybe you were distracted by the guy with the broom playing saviour to the city and missed it (and kept watching while he accomplished absolutely nothing).

Joe -- as I've said dozens of times now, rhetoric, sarcasm, even genuine wit alone won't cut it. Sometime, somewhere, you have to have some hard cold facts to back up what you say. So do you think you could come up with some serious facts and arguments?

Marc -- I don't seriously see how you can describe an NEF contour map as a cure for insomnia, ad in the same breath, claim an interest in good urban planning. Good urban planning serves the public, all the public, which means NEF contours matter.

I don't agree with the article - but I love the poster, is there a higher-resolution image of it anywhere?

Marc in 23 - thanks for dancing on a head of a pin. You didn't really respond to my post, except to re-state that the benefits are small and the costs large, without (as noted) any substantiation. You need to cite some evidence of harm that outweighs the interest of those travellers (not just for business purposes, as you insist), tourists and commuters to a downtown airport. That we already have an airport is of no moment - it is clear there are unmet needs and the market is moving to provide for them. Again, you start from the perspective that the needs of these travellers will only be met if they can prove some overall public benefit, which isn't and shouldn't be the case.

rek/lek - why would you replace a federal body with a provincial or city body? why can't commercial interests be taken into account in determining the commercial use of the waterfront?

Hi Joe, a different John here.

>Fact - airplanes are noisy
Fact - turboprops are less noisy than the jets which are already flying in to Pearson. Fewer jets = less noise.

>Fact - airplanes cause pollution
Fact - they sure do, but so do cabs and cars which are what business people use to get to the core because Pearson's so difficult to get to and far from their destination. You might also find that turboprops cause less pollution than the jets they'd be replacing. Fewer jets & car trips = less pollution.

>Fact - the TPA should be accountable to the tax payers of Toronto
This isn't actually a fact, but an opinion. It's also one I agree with.
A Port Authority needs to be run in the public interest (which in this case mainly means Toronto's interest, not the country's), rather than as a commercial for-profit business.
And the structure of the TPA certainly needs to be revised and the City needs more (though by no means total) control over it.
However that doesn't preclude commercial flights.

>Fact - the TPA has cost this city tens of millions in lawsuits, and owes this city
>millions in back taxes.
In conjunction with the feds in general, it certainly has. And this money needs to be paid back. The entire income TPA makes from Porter should go direct to the City's coffers, and if they don't pay, the feds should be brought to court over it.
This also doesn't preclude commercial flights.

The airport's not a real problem noise or pollution-wise as long as there aren't totally unreasonable numbers of flights coming from it and the Island already has enough parkland on it.
The problem is the broken nature of the TPA. Do something about that instead of complaining about Porter.

that graphic is hilarious.

I remember taking the City Express STOL flights to NYC back in the late 80's, and it was cheap, quiet and efficient. I don't recall there being any public outcry at the time, but it's quite possible I wasn't paying attention.

Still, with all this debate going on, surely someone can post a link to some actual facts about how environmentally/socially/spiritually devastating this thing is going to be? I'm not being sarcastic, I just have not been able to find hard numbers on exactly who is going to be affected and how. I reckon, however, that with 100,000 people moving into the GTA every year, transportion in and out of the city is going to continue to be a huge issue in the future.

Probably what's most offensive is how quickly something like this can happen, while we still wait and wait for much-needed developments like the rail link to the airport, a GO-TTC hybrid metropass, bike lanes, and our waterfront lands in general.

The city isn't particularly against having planes fly out of the Island Airport, but they need a say in how that works, which hasn't happened. The TPA even blatantly ignored city-issued stop-work orders when starting bridge construction. Doing it in secret allows it to be accomplished before the public has time to react.

I'm not against the airport in its current incarnation, nor am I particularly against a commuter service (especially now that Air Canada has been evicted). What scares me is a project run entirely by business interests for the sole purpose of making money for a small amount of people, potentially at the risk of non-commercial interests and money from city coffers. Like the bridge would have done, an airport expansion and big new terminal will have permanent effects on the area that haven't been parsed with the other concerns.

The Toronto Port Authority can change the face of our port to feed its own coffers and the City of Toronto has no control over that. Their decisions have the power to change recreation, traffic patterns, business involvement, and the future of our urban design, and there's no way they should be allowed unfettered, reckless permission to do that without appropriate public consultation -- especially as a government-funded agency.

The TPA has acted with impunity, similar to developers who demolish a historical building at 7 AM because they know a stop order is coming at 9 AM. It's skeezy, selfish and sociopathic.

If John Barber's FOUR lobbyists constitute a
"deluge", I wonder what term of sufficient
rhetorical flair he would pick to describe the
2369 (!) registered lobbyists in Ottawa.

x_the_x: The Island Airport may indeed be useful to me if the expansion goes through, but I'd gladly (potentially) sacrifice the convenience for proper process. The most important unmet needs are not at the Island Airport; they are everywhere else in this city, from transit funding to lack of a city planner for our ubiquitous construction.

What irks me is that the TPA intentionally conducted this deal in secret for their own benefit, clearly aware of the public opposition and sensitivity of this issue. The Marine Act needs a revision that removes the mandate to make money and surrenders at least some control to the city.

You say that "unknown future cost could as easily be phrased an unknown future benefit," but we don't know which one it will be yet, and a failed plan has more significant repercussions. Historically, the TPA has proven that they not only can't be trusted, but they don't even have our civic needs on their radar. They've already cost us $35 million so far, so is this really the agency we want making these decisions for us?

You also mention, "the requirement is in place so that the TPA doesn't drain taxpayer dollars," yet the TPA has been hemorrhaging public money, and has yet to make their balanced-books mandate. Part of the infamous $35 million settlement was paid back to themselves for money allegedly spent on the bridge/Porter deal (almost $8 million). Last year, the TPA reported a loss of more that $3 million.

You say that any increased costs will be passed-on to users of the airport, but what if there are not enough users of the airport? Airports, like airlines, are not unfamiliar with government bailouts.

The Mayor may also have been elected on a plurality, partially because of this issue, but the majority of polled citizens (around 53%) opposed the bridge. Majority, not plurality. This feeling was especially concentrated downtown for obvious reasons. Much of the project's support unsurprisingly came from the aviation industry and other business/port stakeholders.

The Island Airport, in context with the metropolis of Toronto and the waterfront on which it lies, is neither a crucial international hub nor an essential part of Canada's transportation system. That alone should allow more input and control by City Council (who did originally vote for the bridge, which TPA gladly celebrated. TPA will co-operate with the City when they're winning).

My point is that the Toronto Port Authority is in business for nobody but itself, and that is on account of both their profit mandate and lack of accountability to Toronto. That should have changed before any discussion about our port expansion took place.