Image from the Toronto Port Authority web site

While I've been away, a post from last week about the Toronto Island Airport has attracted quite a following. It has topped over 30 comments so far, something not previously achieved on Reading Toronto. This is a topic that our readers feel passionate about. I thought it might be a good idea to provide people with an update on the often testy discussion.

The original post was about how we lack the analytic tools to value assets like clean air and water. The financial world has long been able to quantify the monetary returns of having a downtown airport. Unfortunately, the less tangible benefits of NOT having a downtown airport fall into the subjective realm of politics. Well, sort of.

In the future, when our grandchildren are choking on the cancerous soot of today's decisions, the value of clean air and water will be all too obvious and their culture will have figured out a way to value it in monetary terms. Can we accelerate that learning curve so that we spare our descendants the tragedy of environmental collapse?

Go read the comments to date and decide what side you are on.

1. It seems the only learning curve you are challenging your readers to accelerate is learning how to link the existence of the Toronto City Centre Airport with “our grandchildren choking on cancerour soot” and the “tragedy of environmental collapse”—all without the benefit of objective facts.

   You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but don’t portray it as a metter of figuring out the “all too obvious.”

   Posted by Diane  on  09/08  at  11:36 AM

2. Hi Diane, thank you for your comment and criticism although I maintain that it is obvious. There is a well-documented and scientifically proven link between cancer rates and the burning of fossil fuels. Are you arguing that? http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/fossil_fuels/

   Are you also denying that the possibility of environmental collapse is increasingly likely? If so, believe what you like but I would prefer to be wrong in favour of my kids rather than the opposite. From 1992: http://deoxy.org/sciwarn.htm

   Posted by  on  09/09  at  09:35 AM

3. I really don’t think anyone doubts that burning fossil fuels produces pollution, and pollution has a statistical relationship with cancer rates. However, some of us who have looked at the overall environmental effects of Toronto City Centre Airport have concluded that if Porter Air succeeds, pollution in the Greater Toronto region will actually go down.

   Now before you accuse me of bias; yes, I would prefer to have Toronto City Centre Airport remain open; aside from its status as a (minor) transport hub, it has important medical and educational functions. But that doesn’t change the truth of what I have to say about pollution and City Centre Airport. If you don’t like my sources, post your own. If you don’t like my arguments, please have enough respect for the issue, and the people the issue reflects, to actually analyse them and find a flaw, if you can.

   Otherwise, I would suggest you face the reality of the situation: eliminating Toronto City Centre Airport will increase, not reduce, pollution. If you want to reduce aviation pollution, you have to reduce our use of aviation. The current mayor certainly doesn’t want to do that; he and the city’s elite have latched onto a world’s fair as the mega-project of the year; if they succeed, we’ll get a lot more air travel and attendant pollution.

   Posted by John Spragge  on  09/09  at  02:33 PM

4. R. Oulette, you deliberately misunderstand me in order to make your position seem less ridiculous.

   I am not arguing that pollution is good. I am arguing that that you are irresponsible in claiming that the continued existence of Toronto City Centre Airport contributes to pollution to the extent that it will cause “environmental collapse” highlighted by “our grandchildren choking on cancerous soot”.

   The causalty is not “obvious,” as you claim it to be. If indeed our environment collapses (what does that mean, anyway?) and cancerous soot chokes our grandkids, it is far more likely to be found that the existence or oblivion of TCCA will have made not a whit of difference.

   I assume that you are not a fool, and you take up what you believe to be a noble position for the betterment of your fellow citizens. Well, before you presume to speak for me and the majority of Toronto residents, do a little research to determine whether the argument that TCCA=Death emerges from sober environmental studies or from the political manipulations of would-be waterfront land barons.

   Posted by Diane  on  09/12  at  03:02 PM

5. Dianne: Ouch! I’m may have entered into the realm of hyperbole to emphasize the point. But my point is that we have ways of quantifying the benefits of big projects that accelerate the consumption of fossil fuels but we are less able to quantify conservation and sustainability. Why? In part, we seem to think the earth will sustain our current levels of consumption forever. Face it, that is not possible.

   But let’s take small steps. Let’s build fuel-efficient, rapid transit connections to Pearson from downtown. If we do that we won’t need an island airport.

   Posted by  on  09/12  at  03:21 PM

6. If you find yourself “less able to quantify conservation and sustainability”, perhaps you have that problem because you can’t, or won’t, face the basic task of quantifying levels of pollution. Never mind “quantifying” the benefits of conservation; you haven’t even addressed the question of whether a given act will actually reduce emissions. Just because someone says the words “clean and green”, that doesn’t mean what they want will lead to less pollution. Despite what the opponents of Toronto City Centre Airport say, closing that airport, shutting down Porter Airlines, would lead to a net increase in emission, in noise, and in pollution impacts. So how can we call building rapid transit (which will, at best, reduce the use of cars at Pearson by one fifth, and not reduce emissions form air-side operations at all) a “step forward”?

   In your case, the method seems to involve repeating your conclusion while ignoring the counter-arguments. I have posted careful, clear, arguments based on the actual fuel consumption figures of different aircraft, based on EPA studies of pollution produced by air-side operations, the respective layouts of Pearson and Toronto City Centre Airport. I invite you, I have invited, even begged my opponents to address these facts and figures, to try and find a flaw in the logic, to try to perhaps come up with some solution that might actually work, that might actually involve some level of fairness to the people of Malton and Rexdale.

   I’ve said this before, and I will say it again: I do not demand that any solution you offer keep Toronto City Centre Airport open. The environment matters; so does environmental justice and fairness. Your proposals fail utterly on both counts.

   Now, you don’t have to address the facts. But since you haven’t, why should you find it surprising that none of the people who actually have the responsibility for managing transportation into and out of the GTA take what you have to say seriously?

   Posted by John G. Spragge  on  09/12  at  09:02 PM

7. John, thank you for your comments. I think you must be confusing me with some other person or group who disagrees with you. Your tone is not warranted given that Reading Toronto is not the forum for an in depth, statistically driven discussion about aircraft fuel consumption.

   However, for your information, I worked at de Havilland for eight years prior to training as an architect and subsequently receiving a City of Toronto urban design award. In that time I was involved in the launch of the first Dash-8. Suffice it to say, I know the aircraft type and the industry quite well. I also have a good perspective on the key urban design issues facing Toronto’s harbourfront.

   Also, one of my close friends is a world leading engineer of mass transit solutions and falls into that group you say is responsible for managing transportation into and out of the GTA. He advocates a rapid transit link to the airport from Union Station and lists a whole host of advantages of that system over having a downtown airport.

   John, Toronto’s harbour is not the right place for an airport. That is my informed opinion, one you don’t have to agree with but you do have to respect.

   Posted by  on  09/12  at  10:32 PM

8. You have every right to your opinion or conclusion that an airport does not belong on Toronto’s waterfront. I disagree. I think we both understand that.

   However, when you write ”...we have ways of quantifying the benefits of big projects that accelerate the consumption of fossil fuels…”, you implicitly claim that the airport, and the launch of Porter Airlines, has or will burn more fuel and produce more pollution. I have evidence that refutes that claim. If you, or anyone else you consult, have evidence for your claims about pollution, please bring it on.

   If you want to base your opinion on urban design rather than pollution levels, I can only say that in my opinion, in building a good city (or region, or country), environmental justice trumps urban design. If you want to discuss that, I’ll gladly discuss it as well.

   Posted by John Spragge  on  09/13  at  01:08 AM

9. R. Oulette, setting aside hyperbole (on both our parts), I agree with you that the global climate we currently enjoy is short-lived, and may even be made marginally shorter by the waste products of human civilization.

   The big picture is that the Earth’s climate has changed rapidly and drastically over its six billion year history, and can be expected to continue to do so, whether it suits H. Sapiens or not. The day may come when we WISH we had the power to affect global climate to the degree that today’s erstwhile enviro-warriors lament.

   From that perspective, let me ask you what’s so WRONG about TCCA, really?

   Sure, it may not suit some lakefront residents. But the Union-Pearson rapid transit link won’t suit residents of Weston. For that matter, the new Pickering jetport won’t suit Pickering residents, and Pearson doesn’t suit Malton and Rexdale residents today.

   All this attention on TCCA causes me to susepct that there are political motives lurking in the wings. Which means money. Which means real estate developers. So if I’m not in a hurry to see TCCA bulldozed, it’s because I’m not in a hurry to see that land covered in a forest of condo towers.

   Better a resource the whole GTA can share, however problematic it is, than a windfall for a few private interests.

   Posted by Diane  on  09/13  at  11:05 AM

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