"Do No Harm" really means doing no harm to Toronto's waterfront

2 responses

  1. Diane says:

    Yes, this will do harm to City of Toronto and so the expansion of the Island Airport with jets and a much longer runway (equivalent of two football fields) violates all of City Hall’s requirements, and so is destructive to the revitalization of the waterfront. Billions of dollars have been spent on revitalizing the waterfront, and 17.1 million visitors go to the waterfront each year to enjoy its new green development. Why does a private company get to impact its positive assets of bike paths, nautical clubs, parks, waterfront residences and future Port Lands? This is a bad return on investment by any measure.

    This should a simple argument to be resolved. There are international flights out of Pearson Airport, which will be interconnected to downtown by 2015 by the Union-Pearson Express, and there is no justifiable reason for Porter to duplicate international flights on the Island Airport, and fly over a harbour, waterfront, residences and parks. This is a risk as well in terms of air traffic accidents over a densely populated city. If Porter wants to expand its brand, it should expand their company at Pearson. Changing the Tri-partite agreement will change a boutique airport into a busy international hub, enable every airline to fly jets out of it, and build a Pearson on the waterfront, making it unlivable.

    The bigger CS100 jets are a serious problem. They hold 107 passengers, rather than 70, are twice as heavy, require a longer airstrip, and are jet thrust rather than propellers, so their intakes are 76 cm in diameter, and can be taken down by birds flying into them, which is a real danger. They also will have jet thrust which will blast directly over the inner harbour and the marine traffic on Lake Ontario. Marine traffic will also be blocked by the expanded runway.

    What is equally important is the transport of fuel through neighbourhoods to fuel farms. As the CS100s use twice as much fuel, Porter will have to expand fuel farms on their site, and this will put the neighbourhood at risk for flammability and explosion. Very, very serious indeed. And what really disturbing is that the neighbourhood school will be taken down, or its students’ health threatened by these expanding fuel farms.

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