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nfitz said:
There's certainly flights from the regional airports to Vancouver and Montreal. It's kind of odd that there's no flight to Ottawa at all. Presumably there simply isn't the demand.

But if they were to build another airport in North Pickering - who is to say that there'd be demand to get from there Ottawa? It's only about 320 km from there to Kanata - a 3.5 hour drive right now in Google maps. And the drive is only getting simpler over time as the 407/7 corridor becomes more expressway-like.
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If we are talking of people driving from Kanata to Pickering to catch a flight? then the reasoning behind a Pickering Airport is more flawed then I thought. It’s a 45 minute drive from Pickering to that not nearly at capacity Pearson International. What earthly reason would anyone be contemplating a second international airport in the Toronto Area.

Pearson actively plans that the number of short haul flights will decrease as the capacities and speed of rail to some of these major centres increases.

Pearson estimates that by 2037 the number of annual aircraft movements will fall in the 50% range of capacity.

Pearson is actively planning for airport growth that will contain the Regional Transit Centre, that would include various iterations of regional rail, LRT extensions, bus based transit ways, and HSR.

Pearson released their Master Plan 2017 2037 which runs a 150 pages or so of stats and information. It’s worth perusing. They also released a strategic 10 year plan in 2023, it that is more of a fluff piece.

Plans are plans and I think everyone realizes that many things can upset any plan looking 20 years into the future. However, the planning illustrates the active capacities of the airport and the capacities that can be achieved over time.

With the $ that are going to be advanced to improve connectivity throughout the GTA, building another International Airport lacks need, building an airport for regional short hops lacks need. The case for a ‘business and recreational’ airport is a case that should be looked at, but the assumption that the Pickering lands are the best choice location may not be correct.
 
nfitz said:
Ask Trudeau - I really don't know what he was thinking.
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Can you clarify? I assume you mean P.E.T., whose government started the idea more than 50 years ago then put it on a decades long pause. The Conservatives sort of looked at it and then disposed of much of the land base.

The current government launched another study, which is kind of funny since they have been endlessly studying a rail system that would reduce flights from Toronto and can't seem to come to any of the conclusions that an airport study might need.

I don't see much indication of any intervention by Trudeau Deux in favour of the project.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
If only we could advance pass the stage of planning for HSR and actually build HSR
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We shall see if the CPC will keep it going. But, when HSR opens, it will make a Pickering Airport for scheduled flights redundant. If we ever built HSR like they built the railways in the 1870s, we would not need nearly as many airports as we have now.
 
^Just a little note about the Sydney example. The Sydney metro is very spread out and of lower density than the GTA thus driving times for those on the opposite side of the region were becoming unrealistic.
 
dowlingm said:
Too small in what sense? Building additional aprons and hangars? 15/33 is 3500 feet, 400 feet shorter than the equivalent Buttonville strip.
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It's other advantage - for now at least - is it's not hemmed-in like Buttonville was and Oshawa is. To expand beyond its current private ownership and mostly light general aviation status would require investment to attract corporate aircraft, regional cargo, etc. Facilities such as larger hangars, FOBs, maybe customs, landing aids, etc. In that sense, it does put in direct competition with Hamilton, Waterloo and Oshawa. Thirty-five hundred feet is at the low end for a lot of that potential traffic (in addition to width, RESA, weight capacity, etc.).
 
dowlingm said:
Too small in what sense? Building additional aprons and hangars? 15/33 is 3500 feet, 400 feet shorter than the equivalent Buttonville strip.
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The runway is only 40 feet wide, and 08 has a pole in the way at the end, the taxiways are some of the narrowest in Canada, and the ramp is setup as a bunch of one ways in practice.
 
I honestly wouldn't mind a smaller airport at Pickering dedicated to general aviation + some budget/charter lines.
 
turbanplanner said:
I think the issue is if they’re going to build something there’s no point making it small and then scaling up
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The real question is whether they will build anything there at all. Making an argument to expand existing airports is easy. Making an argument to build a new greenfield airport is much harder.
 
Adjei said:
What’s the need to build a new second airport when nearby airports in Hamilton and Waterloo are not seeing much growth ? If a second airport is needed to relieve pressure off Pearson, then develop those airports.
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Those are in western Ontario. Pickering would serve eastern Ontario. Surely you have a map? It's a 140 km drive between either of those airports and the Pickering Airport Lands.

But what of expanding existing airports in the eastern GTA? There's the Oshawa Executive Airport (YOO), for example, where the runway is longer than that of Billy Bishop and already serves E-Jets. Or the Peterborough Municipal Airport (YPQ), with its 7,000 ft. runway? VIA Rail's new HSR will run right past this airport and could offer fast service from eastern GTA, Kingston and elsewhere.
 
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