Region of Waterloo International Airport - YKF

[YKF]

Runway capacity is the primary concern at Pearson.

I'm hopeful that individuals with the decision making power realize that the status quo needs to change, especially if runway capacity is in fact the primary concern. 

A few things stand out when you look at Pearson's activity:

• 11 daily flights to London, ON (YXU)
  
• 4 daily flights to Kingston, ON (YGK)
  
• 5 daily flights to Windsor, ON (YQG)
  
• 2 daily flights to Sarnia, ON (YZR)
  
• 32 daily flights to Ottawa, ON (YOW)
  

Should high frequency rail ever get off the ground, I hope that the airlines, Pearson, and the Feds give a hard look at instituting rail codeshares before deciding to either declare Pearson as being full, or worse, building Pickering. Flights to destinations utilizing Dash8-100/300s aren't necessarily the best use of scarce runway capacity, especially if those flights are operated to destinations accessible by rail.

[tomh009]

Pearson International Airport in Toronto is expected to hit its capacity in the next 10-15 years.

When that happens, it's anticipated the overflow will go to regional airports like those in Waterloo Region and Hamilton.

What is the source of that prediction, and even if such a ceiling was hit, what would keep us from expanding Pearson instead?

That's in the GTAA study documents. And, as others have said, the ultimate limiting factor will be runway capacity. Those are not easy to add -- see London Heathrow for a prime example!
https://torontopearson.com/masterplan/

[JoeKW]

Is it normal for a regional municipality to be funding the development of it's own international airport? This seems like it's the domain of the federal government.

[timc]

What is the source of that prediction, and even if such a ceiling was hit, what would keep us from expanding Pearson instead?

That's in the GTAA study documents. And, as others have said, the ultimate limiting factor will be runway capacity. Those are not easy to add -- see London Heathrow for a prime example!
https://torontopearson.com/masterplan/

OK, so I took a look at that document, and it says

Because of an industry-wide shift to larger, high-density and more fully occupied aircraft, over the next two
decades, proportionally fewer flights will move greater volumes of people and goods. We therefore project faster
growth in passenger and cargo traffic than in aircraft movements – which we expect to grow at about 1.5 per cent
annually. Our most likely scenario for 2037 suggests that aircraft movements (takeoffs and landings) will increase
to 632,000 from today’s 478,000. At the same time, the average number of passengers on a plane passing through
Toronto Pearson will be 140, compared to 108 today. This represents a 30 per cent increase in the productivity of
our runway system. Where our 2008 Master Plan anticipated the need for a new runway, we now expect to be able
to meet demand with existing capacity throughout our 20-year planning period.

[Spokes]

Is it normal for a regional municipality to be funding the development of it's own international airport? This seems like it's the domain of the federal government.

That's a good point?  Being proactive, not expecting federal funding?

[tomh009]

Is it normal for a regional municipality to be funding the development of it's own international airport? This seems like it's the domain of the federal government.

That's a good point?  Being proactive, not expecting federal funding?

From Toronto:

Construction on Pier F began in mid-2004 and took place as the old
Terminal 1 was demolished. A small portion of Terminal 2 was also demolished
to allow for construction of Pier F. The total budget for Pier F, associated
demolition and apron construction work was $800-million. The budget for the
entire Airport Development Program was $4.5-billion, which was completed on
time and on-budget without any government funding.

In general, I don't think the federal government is funding airport development any more.

[plam]

Is it normal for a regional municipality to be funding the development of it's own international airport? This seems like it's the domain of the federal government.

That's a good point?  Being proactive, not expecting federal funding?

Airport funding in Canada has always been unclear to me. I think the federal government is less involved than the US government, though they still seem to put some money into it. The feds definitely don't own airports today, though they have contributed to airport construction in the past.

https://www.torontoreviewofbooks.com/201...pickering/

[SammyOES]

I'm always a bit skeptical of claims about capacity at major airports like Pearson. There are ways to increase capacity without a new runway: bigger aircrafts on average, improvements in air traffic / ground control technology, moving some traffic earlier / later in the day, etc.. A lot of major airports are feeling these constraints so there are industry wide incentives to focus on these things.

[danbrotherston]

I'm always a bit skeptical of claims about capacity at major airports like Pearson.  There are ways to increase capacity without a new runway: bigger aircrafts on average, improvements in air traffic / ground control technology, moving some traffic earlier / later in the day, etc..  A lot of major airports are feeling these constraints so there are industry wide incentives to focus on these things.

You're basically describing ways of optimizing roads, and yet we sit here with a society that even when developing a master plan where the stated goals are optimization, and multi-modal enablement spends most of it's capital budget on ensuring that the peak capacity seen for an hour a day 5 days a week is met.

Same for parking.

[plam]

I'm always a bit skeptical of claims about capacity at major airports like Pearson.  There are ways to increase capacity without a new runway: bigger aircrafts on average, improvements in air traffic / ground control technology, moving some traffic earlier / later in the day, etc..  A lot of major airports are feeling these constraints so there are industry wide incentives to focus on these things.

You're basically describing ways of optimizing roads, and yet we sit here with a society that even when developing a master plan where the stated goals are optimization, and multi-modal enablement spends most of it's capital budget on ensuring that the peak capacity seen for an hour a day 5 days a week is met.

Same for parking.

Runways and especially gates are priced, though, and there are fewer people who will complain about inadequate airport capacity, and they don't quite vote. So it may be a less populist issue.

[SammyOES]

Yeah, its very little like roads and parking.

[danbrotherston]

"Very little like parking and roads":

"bigger aircrafts on average" = (higher capacity) transit
"improvements in air traffic / ground control technology," = intersection improvements/optimizations
"moving some traffic earlier / later in the day" = congestion pricing to shift traffic away from peak hour.

Economically it's very similar to roads, with the same constraints, and solutions.

And yes, runways and gates are priced, I'm not sure if they're priced more at peak times however. And you're right, it's much less of a populist issue, which is why the solutions proposed by SammyOES are much more feasible for airports than for roads.

[SammyOES]

"Very little like parking and roads":

"bigger aircrafts on average" = (higher capacity) transit
"improvements in air traffic / ground control technology," = intersection improvements/optimizations
"moving some traffic earlier / later in the day" = congestion pricing to shift traffic away from peak hour.

Economically it's very similar to roads, with the same constraints, and solutions.

And yes, runways and gates are priced, I'm not sure if they're priced more at peak times however.  And you're right, it's much less of a populist issue, which is why the solutions proposed by SammyOES are much more feasible for airports than for roads.

I mean, sure, if you boil it down to that level they're very similar. But so is sewage treatment. And internet bandwidth. And everything else even remotely related to capacity.

But they're clearly not at all the same. The social need is very different. Our ambulances / fire trucks / police cars / school buses don't need airports or runways. Every single job and business in this country depends on a local transportation network and only a subset of jobs also depend on airports. Airports/planes are by their very nature point-to-point, something that isn't true for local transportation that needs to connect everywhere people live to everywhere they work. We can control the capacity of airports to a very fine grained degree at the gate and flight level - something thats not at all possible for roads. And we could go on and on.

Even the idea that the "solutions" I mentioned are feasible because airports are less of a populist issue is backwards. It's not a populist issue because airports don't play the same role that local transportation networks play.

Anyway, this feels like it boils down to the same old issue I have with you and your road views. It seems clear to me you have a very simplistic/naive view of the benefits of roads and how they impact society. So I'll leave it at this and try to focus just on the airport itself in this thread.

[darts]

"Very little like parking and roads":

"bigger aircrafts on average" = (higher capacity) transit
"improvements in air traffic / ground control technology," = intersection improvements/optimizations
"moving some traffic earlier / later in the day" = congestion pricing to shift traffic away from peak hour.

Economically it's very similar to roads, with the same constraints, and solutions.

And yes, runways and gates are priced, I'm not sure if they're priced more at peak times however.  And you're right, it's much less of a populist issue, which is why the solutions proposed by SammyOES are much more feasible for airports than for roads.

eyeroll, jesus

[darts]

Is there some reason that is preventing Hamilton from picking up all this traffic? Overall it is much closer and more convenient to most of Toronto than Bresleau