On a summer morning in Toronto, the waterfront is buzzing.
A gaggle of children paddle kayaks on a day camp trip to the Toronto islands. Waterfront condo dwellers sip coffee by their windows. Sailboats dot the sparkling water. Cyclists, pedestrians, streetcars and cars move along Queens Quay, past shops, parks and an elementary school.
And every 20 minutes or so, on average, a turboprop plane takes off or lands at Billy Bishop airport.
What would this scene look like if it were jets?
In his recent push for larger aircraft, Premier Doug Ford has called the island airport a “crown jewel.” But the most precious asset of all is really Toronto’s downtown waterfront as a whole, an intertwined and precarious balance of housing, parkland, water recreation, small businesses, entertainment and — yes — a unique airport that almost certainly would not be built today.
This makes expanding the airport a high-stakes gamble. Get it right, and it could be a powerhouse, connecting Toronto’s downtown to more business and leisure travel destinations. Get it wrong, and it could damage the livability, beauty and value of the city’s waterfront.
So far, details of Ford’s idea are so scant as to be non-existent.
Neither Porter Airlines, which spearheaded the previous push for jets just over a decade ago, nor the Toronto Port Authority, the federally mandated agency that owns and operates the airport, has offered a vision.
The federal government has only signalled a new openness to the idea of “modernizing” the airport, as a possible economy booster, and even a local byelection winner — a possible sign of a change in attitude toward the now-familiar airport.
The city, meanwhile, is facing elimination from involvement in the airport’s future altogether, with Ford hoping to expropriate its share of the airport land and presumably usurp the city’s role in the governing tripartite agreement.
Expansion comes with the allure of a globally competitive Toronto. The federal government certainly hopes so, with a $30-million investment into a long-planned new preclearance facility it says will more than double the airport’s economic contributions; but the hard evidence so far is limited. (One expert suggested it’s “based on vibes.”)
Right now, the airport is operating at less than capacity, using about 150 of the 246 available weekday slots for commercial departure and arrival flights, and has yet to recover from the pandemic decline in air travel. In 2019, the airport served 2.8 million people a year, now it’s about two million. The current state of U.S.-Canada relations isn’t helping. Then, there is the looming presence of Pearson airport, which now has the UPX link to the airport and an impending, pricey renovation.
So what exactly do we want the island airport to be? That was the missing ingredient in 2013 when Urban Strategies consultant Josh Neubauer was part of a team examining what an airport expansion with jets might look like.
“I think that missing ingredient is still missing,” he said this week.
What is clear is that airport expansion would touch and even transform just about every part of the city’s waterfront.
‘Toronto isn’t a passive park’
Urbanist Richard Florida worries he’s stepping on a landmine, but says he can think of nothing more Toronto than having a downtown airport that would be connected to other major cities in North America — perhaps even London and Paris. Even more, so, he says, the city needs this to keep its downtown alive.
“Toronto isn’t a passive park, Toronto is not a bucolic city,” he said. “Toronto’s busy, messy, jumbled up, lots of traffic, lots of noise, lots of commerce … having a walkable, pedestrian-friendly airport in the middle of its downtown is like the most Toronto thing you could do.”
The last time the idea was seriously considered was in 2013, when extensive studies were done on the Porter Airlines plan to bring in the Bombardier CS100 jet.
Today, Porter says its Embraer E195-E2 jets, which currently fly out of Pearson airport to San Francisco, Palm Beach and Puerto Vallarta, would be a good fit for Billy Bishop, carrying 132 passengers compared to 78 in the current turboprop planes.
Porter’s 2013 plan was for a runway extension of 200 metres on each end, for a length of 1,658 metres with limited impact on the recreational boating area.
It is unclear if that would have passed Transport Canada requirements — the proposal was scuttled before that point by the Trudeau government in 2015, citing “quality of life” issues for waterfront residents.
It’s unclear what kind of runway extension would be needed now, and how far it would push out into the water. The same Embraer jets Porter uses fly into London City Airport, which has a runway of 1,508 metres.
But a runway is only one part of what might need to change at the airport to accommodate jets and a potential doubling in passengers to four million or more, including renovations to the terminal and other facilities. Tall noise barriers could be needed along the runway. The cost of all of this, and who would pay for it, is unknown.
But Florida says he believes there is a way to make an expanded airport work.
“It’s the best thing we can do,” he said.
Hindering harbour users
Toronto’s harbour “is probably the biggest showpiece to visitors” that Toronto has, says Dave Corrigan, owner of the 40-year-old Harbourfront Canoe and Kayak Centre. There are five marinas, sailing races, a beautiful promenade along the waterfront, the iconic skyline view from the lake and the short distance to the islands that bring the tranquility of Muskoka to the downtown.
“Toronto, for an urban paddling centre, is one of the top in North America,” he said. The risk of losing both water space and the ability to enjoy it, is not just about the impact on small businesses.
“It’s hard to put a monetary value on people’s physical, mental and spiritual well-being from paddling,” he said. “Some people have even said to me it saved their life.”
There is already a battle over space in Toronto’s wildly chaotic harbour, where kayakers and sailors and Jet Skiers and speedboats and water taxis are all jostling in the waves.
For safety, the airport runway is surrounded by what is known as a marine exclusion zone. In 2013, Porter maintained a runway extension would not force this area to extend farther into the harbour.
But an environmental assessment of Porter’s 2013 plan found there would be a “considerable effect” on small boats along the edge of the zone.
The force of jet blasts — the wind generated by a jet especially before takeoff — could capsize small recreational boats, even with jet blast deflectors of up to 5.8 metres installed at the ends of each runway.
The report was completed in 2017 regardless of the proposal failing and released this week in a freedom-of-information request to Brian Iler of anti-jets advocacy group Parks not Planes.
Noise and air quality would have been relatively unchanged, with a slightly higher public health risk, including insomnia and respiratory illness, the report said. And adding lake infill to lengthen the runway could affect fish habitats, while increasing the number of flights could harm local bird populations, with the airport potentially needing to deter birds from Tommy Thompson Park from colliding with the planes or being sucked into the jet engines.
To address the jet blast issue on small boats, the report suggested the safety zone would need to be pushed out on the outer harbour side, and small boats warned away on the inner harbour side.
There would also be a “considerable” impact on manoeuvreability for both small and large boats in the already tricky to navigate western channel.
Porter’s 2013 plan would “change the look and feel of the waterfront,” the report concluded.
Alex Pancharovski, who co-owns Palapa Tours, said its tiki-bar boats already skim the edges of the restricted zone to get to the quieter passages of the Toronto Islands as quickly as possible. More of a detour would cost more in fuel and mean less time spent on the best part of the tour for his customers, mostly visitors from the GTA.
Right now, seeing the planes landing and taking off is an exciting experience for his passengers, but when does it become “more of an annoyance than a cool factor?” he asked.
Locals feel left out
Noise. Air quality. Health. Safety. Traffic congestion.
Waterfront residents have plenty of worries.
New to the list: losing a voice at the table if the city is removed from any airport governance role by the province.
Ann Elisabeth Samson, co-chair of Ontario Place for All, started her activism to protect the waterfront, but says she now feels like her role is trying to protect democracy.
She’s been disappointed in the city’s wait-and-see response so far.
“I would really like to have an open information session, for example, where the mayor and the people who work for the city that we’ve elected tell us everything they know about the plans the province is going to try to do,” Samson said. “Why does everything have to come from the premier, who is riffing on some new way to make the waterfront horrible to live near?”
Supporters of airport expansion, like Ford, point to the rapid growth of waterfront neighbourhoods alongside the airport as a sign that its presence is accepted and even welcomed. But many of the residents who live there dispute that.
“What residents have consistently been asking for instead are independent assessments on health, safety and impacts before major decisions are made,” said Diane Jameson of the Bathurst Quay Neighbourhood Association.
Why not assess what is even feasible in this crowded location, said Ed Hore, co-chair of the York Quay Neighbourhood Association and veteran of the jet debate battle of the 2010s.
“We should find out first from Transport Canada (a matter involving a submission and complex regulatory review involving experts) before a wrenching political debate,” he said in an email. “If it’s not a doable plan or safe, drop it!”
Doubts about the future
Toronto has spent millions if not billions on restoring its industrial waterfront. Soon it will be home to thousands of new residents, in buildings that could go up to 70 storeys high.
But the Ookwemin Minising neighbourhood also runs beneath the eastern flight path to the airport, with tower heights already a cause for concern for the Toronto Port Authority.
“And that was with short takeoff and landing planes,” said local councillor Paula Fletcher.
Jets might need more room, and Fletcher said she fears this could mean building heights need to be reduced, which could reduce the number of affordable housing units in the development.
On the western side of the airport is Ontario Place, where a waterfront megaspa, Science Centre and Live Nation’s $100-million new year-round concert venue are being built.
Live Nation Canada declined to comment. A spokesperson for Therme said the company building the spa knew airport expansion was a possibility when bidding on the project “so this decision does not change anything for us.”
Coun. Gord Perks, chair of the city’s planning and housing committee, said the reality is the city is in the dark about what this means.
“We as a city have invested thousands of hours working with community and the public to design all kinds of things along the waterfront,” said Perks. “Now we all just have to sit around and wait for the premier’s next daydream before we know if that means anything.”
With files from Andy Takagi
