[wopchop]

This is where I think as a person working and employing and running a business paying city taxes, I should get a vote as well, or maybe half a vote. Decisions that are made in this city affect my ability to carry on a business and employ Toronotonians and others commuting from outside the city, and yet, my voice is restricted to written and oral communication, and local Business organizations.

If you are trying to say that somehow businesses have no voice in municipal politics .. what planet do you live on?

 

[calimehtar]

The Gardiner and Lakeshore have a much bigger negative effect on liveability of the waterfront. Gil already wants all of Ontario place to be a public park, another controversial plan that I think makes a bit more sense than closing the airport. And compared to completely shutting down the airport doing something like building a 200m underground people mover to hanlan's point under the runways seems much more doable. Closing the airport at this point doesn't seem worth the political capital to me.

 

[just east of the creek]

Do you own or rent property in the City, for commercial purposes? Because if you do, you do have a vote.

If not, it gets a bit ridiculous to let everyone vote in everyone else's elections. The airport sits on City land (in part) The airport does sit, in part, on CITY land, and is valued at ??? In 2018, I think, there were reports that it had been valued at 750 million. Not sure how reliable that information is, but if it was that figure, it is certainly moving higher in the present day.. And the airport is governed by three levels of government, and a Federal Act of Parliament. My point would be this, regardless of whether it becomes park land eventually , and you know my thoughts trend to 'no' in that regard, as a federal tax payer, i would want to see every nickel of the value of that land realized., $ that could be reinvested in transport infrastructure, such as ports, just not perhaps in Toronto .



The rail lands would be vastly more expensive (you're talking 1.5B++ for aquisition, the deck and improvements) , for parkland that would be inferior, because it would be strata; you can never grow 100 year old trees on strata, because you have to scrape off the soil every few decades to re-do all the membranes.



Sure, but worth adding those lands are more than 1km west of the most western part of downtown, so they can't really serve the local park need very well. Also, the province owns Ontario Place and is doing with it what it pleases, irrespective of the City's wishes or those of locals.



Land in downtown Toronto sells for over 100M per developable acre; that's some seriously expensive parkland. For the most part, buying a tower and tearing it down for park space is a non-starter, and would be even more expensive.

A single soccer pitch requires ~ 2 acres of land

Residents of downtown who wish to play, sometimes have to travel more than an hour to an available field.

The province has statutorily flatlined property taxes for multi-residential and commercial, in terms of mil. rate.

Raising Property tax solely on SFH is absolutely something that should happen, but you're talking a lot more than .5% to meet all the various needs of the City, never mind go on a buying spree for the most expensive land in the country (give or take some in Vancouver).



The ferries have finite capacity. To some degree that can be enhanced by larger ferries, but they generally take longer to load/offload eating up much of the benefit.

To rapidly load/off load ferries we would have to have direct ramp access to every level of the ferry; that means very elaborate new ferry facilities not only on the mainland by also on the Islands.

Sorry Northern Light. I was back in Montreal and area on a business related trip, watching the mad rush to get snow tires mounted on vehicles, and evaluating some decadent 'la boulangerie' .
I had a couple of thoughts re your post

Voting - You are absolutely correct, If I or my spouse owns or rents. Such is not the case, and for many others as well. My point with voting, is that it is much more open and transparent then lobbying, I get it that 'business' has a voice, but those voices are often behind closed doors. It would be nice to bring that process out into the open, and in todays age where we debate 'first past the post' and 'proportional voting', I believe this is an idea worth exploring.

The Airport - An asset that moved 2.8 million people per year prior to COVID. An asset that is partially owned and administered by the city, but mainly by the two other senior levels of government. An asset that was valued at 750 million in ? 2018? in some reports. If those reports were accurate, then todays value might be and is most likely more. Whether the airport exists past 2033 is a good question for debate. But as a federal and provincial taxpayer I would like to see every dollar of value recovered form those lands for investment in other transportation infrastructure (excluding any talk of airports in Pickering) whether by rail, water or air.

My point re parklands is a little like this., Rail deck is very central and offers a larger space. And as you have rightly pointed out, restricts the idea of a traditional park of the type we all know and love - larger trees, playing fields etc. etc. However, there are areas, granted not as central, to the east and west that could accommodate some of those attributes and activities. Rail deck could be more of an 'urban' park, a little like High Line in NY possibly.

And the cost, either of rail deck or acquiring vacant developable land is seriously expensive, even over time, as any of this will be over time. But that's today, and parks and urban landmarks are for much, much longer. And in a generation, no one is going to be talking about the cost, everyone is just going to appreciate the space.

There is an article in the Globe today (Oliver Moore and Jeff Gray that speaks to the cities on going and increasing deficiencies in capital spending for just about everything connected with parks, roads, transit and general maintenance. And also rightly points out that this is not all the cities fault, as other levels of government download, without downloading dollars except in a patchwork of specific vote getting grants.

It certainly appears that if the city wants to advance its agenda on a number of fronts - parks, housing, transit, roads, maintenance - then raising taxes is going to be part of the hard math,.

Rgd's

 

[picard102]

Not a problem for me. If it requires corruption to have a better living environment, so be it. This airport's a relic from a time when the waterfront was all industrial, the city needs to move on and create a space for people and nature instead.

It's an asset to now, a time when downtown toronto is a business center for the country. The city needs to move on and start maintaining the many parks they have now.

 

[dowlingm]

It's an asset to now, a time when downtown toronto is a business center for the country. The city needs to move on and start maintaining the many parks they have now.

This is a point - one of the notorious things about the city in the last decade is the focus on new facilities which result in ribbon cutting, and the rapid degeneration of those parks and rec facilities once the giant scissors moves on.

 

[Megaton327]

Perhaps this thread should be renamed to just Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport removing the "Pedestrian Tunnel" specific part, which is long since complete and seemingly has not been discussed for at least a few dozen pages...

 

[DSC]

We do not seem to have a thread for Porter so i will just put this here...

 

[robmausser]

We do not seem to have a thread for Porter so i will just put this here...

View attachment 435121

What was the deal with Porter giving up Bill Bishop? Was it mandated (like they were forced to) or did they sell it off willingly. Because if the latter...worlds smallest violin. And that comes from a Pro-Porter island airport supporter.

 

[rbt]

What was the deal with Porter giving up Bill Bishop? Was it mandated (like they were forced to) or did they sell it off willingly. Because if the latter...worlds smallest violin. And that comes from a Pro-Porter island airport supporter.

The sale of "City Centre Terminal Corp." in 2015, a Porter owned corporation, was entirely up to Porter and expected to fund expansion. It was expected to raise $400m to $750m, but the value was not made public. They had a Bombardier order for CS100 jets, which were not allowed at the island airport, at that time.

They started shopping Embraer Jets which also cannot be used at the island airport a few years after which have a list price (and nobody pays the list price) of US$1.56 billion.

 

[robmausser]

The sale of "City Centre Terminal Corp." in 2015, a Porter owned corporation, was entirely up to Porter and expected to fund expansion. It was expected to raise about $750 million, but the value was not made public.

They started shopping Embraer Jets which cannot be used at the island airport only a few years after that which have a list price (and nobody pays the list price) of US$1.56 billion.

Then

 

[robmausser]

Speculation on my part, but this could be why Porter has gone all-in with Embraer, besides getting a good deal on the jets.

Embraer Releases Video Of New Turboprop In Development

Embraer has put out another little teaser on its proposed new-generation truboprop, keeping the interest bubbling along and building expectations.

simpleflying.com

They are building a turboprop with jet-like capacity, speed and range.

Perhaps Porter will order these as a way to still get what they wished out of Billy Bishop with the A-220.

 

[kEiThZ]

Not a problem for me. If it requires corruption to have a better living environment, so be it. This airport's a relic from a time when the waterfront was all industrial, the city needs to move on and create a space for people and nature instead.

Are you okay when this works only for causes and ideas you support or you good when politicians you dislike do the same?

If you're prepared to give a mayor carte blanche to rip up runways, then you should be prepared for the next Rob Ford type of character to sell off parks and rip out streetcar and LRT tracks. You cool with that?

 

[kEiThZ]

Speculation on my part, but this could be why Porter has gone all-in with Embraer, besides getting a good deal on the jets.

If they had any intention to operate a turbofan fleet at the Island, they should have stuck with the A220. The E195-E2 requires an even longer runway and deliver less capacity than an A220-300. And with the A220-100 they could have 90% of the capacity of their E195s for the originally requested short runway extension. The selection of the E195-E2 basically means that Porter will not operate turbofan aircraft at BBTCA.

 

[robmausser]

If they had any intention to operate a turbofan fleet at the Island, they should have stuck with the A220. The E195-E2 requires an even longer runway and deliver less capacity than an A220-300. And with the A220-100 they could have 90% of the capacity of their E195s for the originally requested short runway extension. The selection of the E195-E2 basically means that Porter will not operate turbofan aircraft at BBTCA.

I didn't say they had an intention to operate a turbofan at the Island, I said a TurboPROP

This is a turboPROP that Embraer is building out of the E-195-E2 frame.

It has the same seating as an E-195-E2, can travel nearly as far and nearly as fast, and has a planned minimum runway takeoff just slightly larger than the existing Island runway. Only minimal expansions would be needed.

Most importantly, it can get around the jet ban at the island.

My argument is that Porter is biding their time, keeping profits running with a Pearson expansion, and then will eventually replace the Q400's at the island with these when its ready and they need replacement.

Their choice of using Embraer jets is more than just a sweet deal; they are starting a relationship with the plane manufacturer to eventually run these larger jet-like turboprops out of the island.

Even after saying all of that, fyi the Embraer E-190-E2 jets (im talking turbofan to be clear) are just a simple variant of the E-195-E2s, can seat 106 passengers and have an even SHORTER minimum runway length than the A220s.

Remember, Porter was planning to use the A220-100, not the 300 out of the island. (technically the C-Series at the time) The 100 only allows 108 seats with the runway length Porter wanted.

It would be pretty easy at anytime if Porter wanted to order some E-190's from Embraer, if the jet ban was lifted and they could get the runway extension. And they would actually need a smaller extension than even the A220s.

So I wouldn't consider that plan necessarily dead due to the choice of Embraer.

 

[CapitalSeven]

I have wondered for years and years why this thread is still named after the pedestrian tunnel.