A flurry of activity over the past two weeks has resulted in Toronto and East York Community Council yesterday adopting significant measures to address dangerous traffic volumes caused by the expanding Island Airport.

“We’ve won a significant victory. It took the combined resources of angry parents and an impressively‑responsive Toronto District School Board, working closely with Councillor Adam Vaughan and City staff, to force the Toronto Port Authority to take community concerns seriously.” said Brian Iler, Chair, CommunityAIR.

 “If the TPA had any willingness to listen to the community’s concerns it would have long ago constrained its aggressive airport expansion until sufficient measures were in place to protect the community. These actions should not have been necessary.”

“The City has limited ability to address that aggressive airport expansion and the TPA`s complete failure to properly plan for ground transportation to and from its airport. It has done all that we could reasonably have hoped for.” he added.

A City safety review of this intersection, tabled at that meeting, confirmed what parents have been worrying about:

• pedestrian conflicts with vehicles related to vehicle turning movements at the intersection
• taxi drivers queuing through the intersection, blocking pedestrian crosswalks, and performing aggressive manoeuvres such as
1. northbound right turns on red from the northbound left-turn lane,
2. running the red/amber light,
3. U turns, and
4. northbound and westbound left turns with pedestrians in the crosswalk.
5. parking for student pickup/drop‑off interfered with the northbound approach to the intersection, forcing through and right-turning traffic into the northbound left-turn lane.

Over the three-year period ending December 31, 2011 there were nine collisions at this intersection. But since April 7 there have been three ‑ a cyclist was struck by a car that day and taken to hospital. On April 23 young woman was struck by a car at Bathurst and Queens Quay. She left in an ambulance. A third accident between two cars occurred just last Friday.

The meeting was told a hundred traffic tickets have been issued in the past month, as Toronto police step up enforcement activities at that intersection.

The Council decided to:

• Prohibit northbound left turns from Eireann Quay to Queens Quay West at all times,
• Prohibit northbound right turns from Eireann Quay to Queens Quay West when the  traffic control signal shows red,
• Prohibit eastbound right turns from Queens Quay West to Eireann Quay when the traffic control signal shows red
• Modify the pavement markings at the intersection of Queens Quay West and Eireann Quay/Bathurst Street by
1. installing zebra markings on all four crosswalks,
2. improving the bicycle lane markings on the westbound approach,
3.  installing any additional guide lines required to assist motorists through the centre of the intersection, and
4. delineating a new school bus loading zone immediately south of the intersection
• Prohibit northbound left turns from Stadium Road to Lake Shore Boulevard West, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday to Friday, except Public Holidays.
• Prohibit eastbound right turns from Lake Shore Boulevard West to Stadium Road, from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., Monday to Friday, except Public Holidays.
• Prohibit heavy trucks at all times on Stadium Road, between Lake Shore Boulevard West and the south end of Stadium Road
• Install a red light camera at the Bathurst Street/Queen’s Quay/Eireann Quay intersection
• Narrow the Eireann Quay roadway at the south side of the intersection
• Create seven short stay parking spaces for parent pick-up and drop-off for the two schools and day care centre at that intersection.

Speed bumps on Eireann Quay, approved for installation in August, 2010, but delayed by threat of legal action from the TPA, are now likely to be installed following a further round of consultation.

Parents and community members continue to stop traffic with banners in that intersection twice daily to protect their children.

The people living near the island airport, growing in numbers as new condos rise, are suffering from the total lack of planning by the federal government`s Dept of Transport on the mainland for access to and egress from this downtown airport.  The bottleneck is between Lakeshore and the Western Gap which intersects Queens Quay west right at the point of access to the community`s centre and the Waterfront Schools. It is simply too late to make Bathurst wider between Lakeshore and Queens Quay west at this point, and yet the federal government`s agency, the TPA persist in bulldozing this pet project through the community. Everything they do to develop the commercial use of the airport makes the traffic congestion steadily worse, and its already become unsafe. Within the last month a bicyclist and a pedestrian have been hit by vehicles drooping off or picking up airline passengers. 

 Airline personnel and passengers, and lurking taxis and limos, occupy the few parking spots on the community`s streets, so that visitors of those who live in the precinct can only visit by taxi or by the TTC. The parking and congestion will be worse when summer arrives.

Anyone looking at the roads leading to the island airport would conclude that an offsite passenger pickup and drop off depot is the only answer to airport operations expansion, but nothing has been done to arrange such strategically located, essential infrastructure. Instead, almost $100 million will be spent to effectively increase the traffic to and from the island airport, without planning to do anything to alleviate the traffic on the ground.

This significant insanity seems as ungrounded a plan as the F35 acquisitions. We in the community understand the TPA are this month to announce further insane measures to develop its airport, which is despoiling the harbour of Canada`s Greatest Great Lakes City for the sake of a temporary convenience factor for downtown office workers and great inconvenience to the millions visiting the Harbourfront precinct for recreational and cultural purposes and those many thousands  who live within the precinct.

 If a passenger study were conducted, it would find that most passengers using this airport are downtown Torontonians spending travel dollars in other cities serviced by this airport, so almost a billion dollars of federal taxpayer funds is being spent to drive Canadian dollars  held by the private sector away from the GTA, rather than to the GTA, and some from Toronto to NYC, Chicago, Boston and so on.  What was the sense of that?

A waterfront resident

CommunityAIR press release, May 2, 2012

For the third week, parents and community supporters have twice daily assisted the crossing guard at the intersection of Bathurst and Queen’s Quay by holding banners to obstruct taxis and other Island Airport traffic that endanger their children as they cross this chaotic intersection to and from school.

After several unsympathetic encounters with police, we’re pleased to advise that the police attitude has changed entirely.

Kathryn Exner, a parent at Waterfront School, reports:

I thought that since I wrote about incidents at the intersection involving police "unpleasantness" last week during our banner initiative, I would write to update on what's been happening for the past three mornings.

Starting this past Monday, we've had the same officer come to our corner for the morning shift. And in contrast to the police who came last week, this fellow has been friendly, respectful, and so far supportive. We've received no reprimands for how we're handling our banners with the traffic and he told me that he's in favour of what we're doing.

Jackie (the Chair of the Waterfront School Parent Council) asked him several questions about his presence. He said he's been asked by his sergeant to be at the intersection every morning, not because of what we're doing but because of the dangerous traffic situations plaguing the intersection.

And since actions speak louder than words, I'm quite pleased to report that he ticketed three drivers in the last two days for infractions--one was a taxi who received a $181.00 fine for making a left-hand turn through the intersection on a red.

So it seems that at least for now, we've finally got the police presence at the intersection that we've been asking for, and not because of the Toronto Port Authority, but though our actions.

Not sure how long this will last but it seems a positive development.

From CBC News: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/04/27/toronto-airport-protest.html

Some people who live near Toronto's Billy Bishop Airport say they're fed up with all the traffic they have to deal with on a daily basis.

The airport is located on the Toronto islands, just south of downtown Toronto.

The residents say the taxi traffic is out of control and crossing the streets in the neighbourhood is getting more and more dangerous.

On Friday some parents joined the local crossing guard and held up a banner, which in turn held up traffic.

Kathy Exner, one of the protesters who has a child at the local daycare, explained that the congestion is making it dangerous for everyone.

"[Drivers are] running lights, cutting corners, children were almost getting hit," she said.

Daycare worker Jane Deng worries about crossing from the daycare to the park across the street.

"Lately it's been really scary," she said.

As well as the daycare there are two schools in the area.

Jeff Wilson, president and CEO of the Toronto Port Authority, which runs the airport, says measure are being taken.

He says the TPA has been working with city hall and local residents to calm the traffic down. There are more police officers in the area and more port authority security guards.

Regarding the officer that reprimanded the parents holding the banner this morning:

The Toronto Police owe those volunteers an apology! Maybe the police should go do something useful with their time, instead of put down people who are trying to improve the neighborhood and save lives, and keep more people from being injured by motorists in their insulated steel bubbles. This officer's attitude is unacceptable. As condo board member at South Beach, this story disgusts me. How many more people need to be hit by a car at that intersection before people take things seriously?

Keep up the great work. You are truly serving the community by getting this message out. We all greatly appreciate it.