We don't need to expand Billy Bishop, we need to rip it down
It's obsolete, it's redundant, and we can use the land for better things.
Good news everyone, Doug Ford has new and exciting plans to ruin Toronto’s Harbourfront even more than he already has! Turning Ontario Place into a private spa and a parking garage isn’t enough, you see. His designs are now aimed towards the Toronto Islands’ Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, the dinky little brother of Toronto Pearson International Airport over in Mississauga.
Named after WW1 flying ace and WW2 recruitment director Air Marshal Billy Bishop, the island airport currently only operates regional flights from Air Canada Express and Porter Airlines using the De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400, a small turboprop that seats 78 passengers in cramped conditions with limited carry-on space.
Premier Ford’s proposal would see Billy Bishop’s runway expanded, allowing for regional jets to take off and land rather than just turboprops. The airport is governed by a tripartite agreement between all three levels of government, but Ford has been very clear with Mayor Chow that the province does not need the city’s consent as the city exists as a creature of the province; only the consent of the federal government will be necessary for Ford to proceed.
NoJetsTO, a group chaired by Norm Di Pasquale—who has previously appeared on my podcast—has consistently opposed plans to expand the island airport to jets, years before this current proposal. There is significant scientific evidence that living close to an airport can be damaging to human health, and it would certainly limit Port Lands development, blocking large amounts of housing to clear flight paths.
I generally agree with these arguments against expansion, but I would actually go one step further. Not only do I believe we should refuse to expand Billy Bishop, I actually believe that with current and future infrastructure in the region, Billy Bishop will become so obsolete that the only reasonable option is to close it entirely, and reclaim the land for public access and enjoyment in concert with the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
For those without context, such a maximalist anti-airport plan may seem extreme, but with a little explanation the proposition is actually quite reasonable. With the opening of the UP Express just over a decade ago, Toronto now has a Regional Express Rail link between the downtown core and Pearson International Airport. Service runs every 15 minutes, roughly 20 hours a day, with comfortable train cars that have dedicated luggage racks.
The UP Express has reasonably priced fares with group and family discounts, and it uses the same PRESTO cards as most Ontario transit does, or your debit or credit card if you don’t have PRESTO fare media. The train has multiple stops allowing transfers to Line 2 and Line 5, allowing those in Midtown and North Toronto to easily access Pearson as well.
Compared to the cramped 500-series legacy streetcars and the complimentary bus shuttle that Billy Bishop offers as transit links from Union, and as someone who has gone from Union to Pearson quickly using the UP Express to make my flights, there is absolutely zero motivation for me to ever fly with Billy Bishop. Pearson is far more accessible to people who need to get in and out from the various parts of Toronto.
And even with expansion to jets, Billy Bishop would still just serve smaller regional jets like the Embraer E-Jet family, at most the Airbus A220-100 which required steep approach certification before it could operate at London City Airport in the United Kingdom. The destinations that Billy Bishop serves would not significantly change.
Mind you, right now, every single route offered out of Billy Bishop is a flight that can also be had out of Pearson, which we have established is easier to get to with your luggage, and features more comfortable jets for travellers. At Pearson, Porter can fly an Embraer E195-E2 rather than the Dash 8, fitting dozens of additional seats while also offering a better passenger experience.
All the international flights from Billy Bishop go to the United States, and if you’re unaware, Canadians have largely abandoned the Yankee Empire as a travel destination due to their general fascist insanity; Air Canada, WestJet and Air Transat all have cut routes to U.S. destinations and reallocated those planes and crews to more popular and profitable places.
Nonetheless, some Canadians are still trying to visit the Yankees, and some Yankees still have to come up here, as much as I may frown upon the exchange. Even with the recent opening of a U.S. preclearance facility at Billy Bishop, you will be better served as a transborder passenger by flying through Pearson, for the reasons elaborated upon above.
And if you’re travelling domestic, in the coming decade you may have a better option than flying. While VIA Rail isn’t currently at the state where I can categorically recommend it over flight in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montréal triangle, Alto High-Speed Rail will be that alternative. Alto plans to reach or exceed a sustained peak speed of 300 km/h along the corridor, roughly double that of VIA Rail, and also to separate the trains from that of CN and CPKC freight traffic, greatly uplifting the train’s reliability.
Obviously, Alto won’t replace flights from Toronto to Moncton or Halifax. What it will do is free up slots at airports along the line. In fact, this is likely the reason Air Canada is part of the Cadence consortium building Alto; they wish to have seamless transfers between air and rail at Pearson in Toronto and Trudeau in Montréal, letting people use a single ticket and have luggage automatically transfer, as Star Alliance airlines like Air Canada currently do with Deutsche Bahn in Germany.
The ability to quickly get to Pearson is already detrimental to the business case for Billy Bishop; if Alto high-speed trains roll right into the core of Toronto, there will be no reason to fly through Billy Bishop at all. It will be a deadly one-two combo punch, and attempting to throw money at Billy Bishop in this context will go as well as the white elephant project that was Montréal’s Mirabel airport.
We don’t need to waste money on outdated, redundant infrastructure that is already being replaced by better alternatives. We don’t want to burn our cash refitting Billy Bishop only for Alto to come to Toronto at the same time and make demand for the island airport crater into oblivion. Billy Bishop doesn’t need to close today, but I do not see any scenario in which by the year 2040 it will still operate as it does now.
Rather than complain, I’d prefer to embrace the potential that this opportunity brings, and start planning for what reclamation of the airport lands will look like. While the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation settled their legal claim to the land back in 2010, it is still sacred and important land to them as a people; their involvement and consent on any future plans is a moral necessity.
Going forward, we will not need Billy Bishop anymore. The land has much better purposes, that will better suit our growing city. And when the time comes, it will be my privilege to watch them rip it down.
Doug Ford doesn't even know that UP Express (UPX) exists! In his press conference he mentioned that Billy Bishop would be easier to reach than 'driving up to Pearson'. It's another real estate & rich friends deal...
This is a great example of the kind of thinking that has brought Canada to its current situation of abysmal growth, low productivity, and quickly approaching fiscal collapse.
The reason they want to expand Billy Bishop is because the demand exists (it also has to be regardless of jets due tobTransport Canada regs). If people wanted to spend an extra 30 to 45 minutes getting a train on a short haul flight, they would be doing that already. The heavily subsidized UP Express is seldom used by passengers and mostly serves as a commuter link and a way for airport employees to get to work - recall that it has never met its ridership goals and had to cut its fares by two thirds (it's also not an "express" anymore). It's faster to take transit to Billy Bishop from virtually anywhere in Toronto. Additionally, Toronto has been planning a third airport in the GTA for quite some time because Pearson is at its limit. Alto doesn't solve that.
Alto will likely never be built, as the cost will certainly surpass $200B for the entire route based on California's HSR, not the lowball $90B quoted, and there is no business case for it. If the tickets for Alto aren't heavily subsidized, they will certainly be multiples of the cost of an airline ticket. In the event sanity does not prevail and Alto to Toronto is built and subsidized to the tune of 90%+ (meaning taxpayers across Canada would be funding your trip - it will make Canada Post subsidies look like pocket change), it will never go to Pearson, nor will it be going to Ottawa International or Trudeau - the rights of way, expropriation and/or tunnelling would add tens of billions of dollars and years to the project. And you're going to fly into Toronto, then take Alto to Ottawa, Montreal or Quebec, adding three to four hours to your trip? Nope. Your going to transfer to a plane, baggage ticketed through, and get there in an hour or less.
But ultimately what you're talking about is public money with endless operational subsidies competing against private investment in a sector that is already taxed higher than others. "We" aren't wasting money on Billy Bishop as it's recouped by from the airlines and passengers. And it's $65M, not $200B. Pearson is maxed out and Alto is a fiscal black hole designed to funnel cash to Quebec interests. But if you're really worried about public access to the islands, just buy out the sweetheart leases given to the people that never owned property on the Islands and built cottages on parkland.