City has chance to capitalize on runway proposal

The Toronto Island airport is an issue that never dies. Sleeping like a public policy Godzilla, it periodically awakens and roars.

- SHAWN MICALLEF

Noble Billy Bishop to some, a polluting and loud blight on the waterfront to others, it has risen again with a new proposal to extend its runways. The reason given is safety, but it’s also triggered some long-simmering worry that the airport will expand operations too.

As it is now, the airport represents one of Toronto’s great political détentes. Some history: a key issue in the 2003 mayoral race was a proposed bridge to the airport from the foot of Bathurst. Like the current proposal, it was seen as a “thin edge of the wedge” and a way to pave the way (no pun intended) for airport expansion.

David Miller explicitly ran on a platform opposing the bridge. He won and the détente began.

The airlines serving the island flourished but the airport didn’t expand. Critics remained grumpy but quieted down, and loads of people (some of them quietly) happily took short-range turboprop planes to places like New York, Montreal and Sault Ste. Marie.

Since then there has always been pressure from the airline industry to expand the runways and allow jets, but the détente held and beyond some terminal improvements, nothing much happened.

The détente was so strong and widely accepted that when the tunnel to the airport was proposed and built, opposition to it was low: the big argument was settled in 2003.