It's really strange seeing an AC turboprop in anything other than Jazz colours.
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Air Georgian has a bunch of Beechcraft flying around doing Air Canada runs to places like YYZ-Kingston and YYZ-Albany, but I'm not sure I've ever seen one. Do they say "Air Canada" or "Air Georgian" on the outside?

I really like the look of the Air Canada Q400 in the photo.
 
sjc said:
Air Georgian has a bunch of Beechcraft flying around doing Air Canada runs to places like YYZ-Kingston and YYZ-Albany, but I'm not sure I've ever seen one. Do they say "Air Canada" or "Air Georgian" on the outside?

I really like the look of the Air Canada Q400 in the photo.
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They have the Air Canada styled-tail with "Aliance" in large font on the fuselage just in front of the tail and "Air Canada" in smaller font just aft of the main door above the windows. "Operated by Air Georgian" is in small font below the cockpit side window. See this photo.

Edit: fix cut and paste error
 
A draft of the environmental assessment for the proposed tunnel to the airport has been released: DRAFT REPORT

There is an interesting table on page 48 that details how people are getting to and from the airport. Around half of the passengers take a taxi to and from the airport in the morning and to the airport in the afternoon/evening (shuttle bus usage ranges from 25-35%). However, of arriving passengers in the afternoon/evening, almost half (45%) take the shuttle bus and only 29% take cabs. Very few people walk or take their car (pedestrians peak at 16% of arriving passengers in the evening.

Hopefully, with the new council, the TPA can work cooperatively with the city to improve transit and road access to the airport (declaring the street a no-stopping zone is not a solution to the problem of too many cabs). I wonder if there is any chance that they could put in streetcar tracks so that Bathurst and Queens Quay (and perhaps Spadina?) streetcars could come all the way to the airport. It would also be nice to see the airport access area included in the waterfront development plan, so that tourists arriving in Toronto could be drawn into the waterfront experience (development should encourage people to walk to Harbourfront rather than immediately hopping in a cab).

What I would like to see, in an ideal world, would be the access road to be replaced by a large underground parking complex that would allow cabs and cars (and even streetcars) to access the ferry terminal/tunnel from underground (at the level of the tunnel). You could landscape over the whole thing and remove the cars/taxis from view (and extending the park). Perhaps there could be shops as well.

EDIT: You will be surprised to hear that Community Air thinks that the report is a "sham".
http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/1...ironmental-assessment-a-sham-community-group/
 
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There are several advantages to a tunnel over a bridge: 1) it is indoors -- you don't have to walk several hundred feet outdoors (especially in rain or winter), 2) there is more space for cabs/buses to park on the mainland, 3) you don't need to close a tunnel when a boat wants to go by.

I wouldn't want to walk several hundred feet across a bridge to catch a cab or to get to the streetcar stop.
 
sjc said:
There are several advantages to a tunnel over a bridge: 1) it is indoors -- you don't have to walk several hundred feet outdoors (especially in rain or winter), 2) there is more space for cabs/buses to park on the mainland, 3) you don't need to close a tunnel when a boat wants to go by.

I wouldn't want to walk several hundred feet across a bridge to catch a cab or to get to the streetcar stop.
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I agree, the tunnel is the way to go...regarding Community Air thinking that the report is a "sham".they can all 'eat crow'..
 
I would think that the Community Air people would like the idea of a tunnel, since it should allow the TPA to reduce the ferry schedule. People walking underground can't really bother anyone (and they were people that were going to go by on the street regardless of whether a tunnel gets built or not).

It should also reduce the number of cabs sitting around on the street, since people won't arrive bunched into groups 4 times an hour. There will still be some bunching as planes arrive, but some people head straight for the exit and some wait for their bags or go to the washroom, so will get spread out to some extent.

I don't see that not building the tunnel would stop Porter (or Air Canada) expansion at the airport. If they don't build it, they might have to start running two ferries, but that should be possible.
 
From reading the article, I think this community group is confused. The EA was specifically about the tunnel, their beefs seem to mainly be with the increased traffic at the airport. "CommunityAIR argues that the airport traffic is too high, creates noise pollution, and makes life generally miserable for those who live near the busy hub."... What does that have to do with the tunnel EA at all?!?! Calling a very specific EA a sham, when your real problem is with the airport itself, isn't going to gain you much credibility. It just makes you sound like a NIMBY group who has no idea how the process works, or how to go about actually getting change. It was just an EA, not a feasibility study. You don't need that much public participation to prove that a tunnel underneath a harbour is not going to significantly damage the environment.
 
nfitz said:
The tunnel will have a much bigger capacity than the ferry, allowing for more passengers to get to the airport. It's not difficult to link that to more flights.
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Still, their beef is with the airport itself, not with the tunnel connecting it. And even if it did, volume concerns with the airport have very little to do with whether or not the tunnel will impact the environment.

If they want to stop the expansion of the airport, protest the airport, protest Air Canada trying to start doing flights from the island, protest Porter trying to get more flights from the island. If anything, the tunnel will have LESS environmental impact, because you won't have a diesel spewing ferry chugging across every few minutes.
 
There will still be a ferry whether or not the tunnel gets built, as it will still be needed for vehicle traffic. However, they might be able to reduce the schedule for the less busy parts of the day.
 
sjc said:
There will still be a ferry whether or not the tunnel gets built, as it will still be needed for vehicle traffic. However, they might be able to reduce the schedule for the less busy parts of the day.
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That's true, but the number of vehicles travelling to the island is much smaller than the number of people travelling to the airport. Either way, there will be a reducting in the number of required ferry trips.

It also kind of bugs me that the "community group" is protesting the island airport. The airport precedes there even being a community there. Porter even began flying from the Island Airport before a lot of the condos that the protesters currently live in were even built! They knew Porter was operating from the airport, and they knew this was likely going to be a popular service (although I don't think very many people anticipated it being as popular as it is). It's like these people who buy a house in a rural estate subdvision, and then complain that the air smells like cow shit. Well duh! The airport was there before you were, and in a lot of cases, Porter was there before you were. Deal with it.
 
Just to add, Porter also needs the ferry for Irregular Operations out of Pearson during poor weather.
 
Does anyone recall if there were protests when City Express started up in the 80's?

I flew Air Ontario a lot on the 1990s from the Island Airport and don't recall there being any sort of controversy. There were around 15-20 flights a day back then to YUL, YOW and YXU (until they merged to form Jazz and started reducing service). (Who remembers the old "bus shelter" ferry terminal?)
 
gweed123 said:
Still, their beef is with the airport itself, not with the tunnel connecting it. And even if it did, volume concerns with the airport have very little to do with whether or not the tunnel will impact the environment.
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With the airport...it has existed for over 50 years, way before a bunch of these Community Air Heads were born, and if i recall hearing that 10 or so years ago the island airport was handling close to the amount of passengers they have now..dont get it.
 
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