Bright lights! Yowza! Try living at 55/65 Harbour Square where the lights of short-turning planes at the eastern gap shine so brightly and intensley into some units that they could freeze a bunny in its tracks.

I have been at parties where the unitiated guest will yell "Yikes! Hit the floor" as they stare fixedly at the spotlights boring into the room, ut of the darkness.

Gus

On the topic of good neighbours, several years ago I started to go to the (then) new Goodlife gym at the corner of York and Station Street across from Union Station. When the gym opened they had no bicycle lock-up posts outside. Several members asked for bike posts and they were eventually installed on Station Street near the corner - six posts. Soon after that the Porter Airlines bus started to use Station Street and park (idling)outside the Goodlife gym while waiting for their patrons - three bike posts were removed from the corner to make room for the bus. Porter no longer uses the street or the sidewalk to park on, (they apparently did not pay their rent) and they never returned the bike posts. Three bicycle posts is inadequate and since this is a 'private street' the City cannot install posts at that location. It would be prudent if Porter Airlines and the Port Authority would return the bike posts that they removed.

Concerned Resident

Talk about bright lights and, I'd say, BAD NEIGHBOURS, the port authority has been lighting up the new island airport terminal since starting to build it, and it's not even open yet! If they worry about a plane hitting it, all they have to do is install modest red lights on the roof.

They should be required to turn off unneeded lights to save electricity and let their neighbours look at something else for a change! At the very least, they should be required to keep those bright lights off during hours the airport is closed, in the same way they shut down runway lights after hours.

A Bathurst Quay resident

Once again, Joe, you completely miss the point.

We all hope and pray that day never ever comes. But that is insufficent to prevent it from happening.

James Holzbauer

All comes down to the interpretation of the term 'similar fixed link' in the regulation below.

"Her Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the Minister of Transport, pursuant to paragraph 62(1)(b) of the Canada Marine Act, hereby makes the annexed Toronto Port Authority Regulations: 1. The Toronto Port Authority shall not use, or authorize or permit another person to use, the port to build a bridge or similar fixed link between the mainland of the City of Toronto and the Toronto Islands."

Kyle

An example of how the Island Airport treats us, their neighbour:
The new ferry was put into service recently. They carried two big lights pointing to the north. (may be south too, but I cannot see that side). I could barely look out of the window, they were so bright. The same thing happened 3 years ago when the then-new ferry was put into service. It was changed to a dimmer light afterwards... I guess somebody complained. Why did they do it again? Don't they have common sense or is it just that they don't care?

Maybe they just want to blind us so that we do not need to look at this terrible mess anymore!

---

There’s an interesting angle that hasn’t come up this time round yet: they’ll have to change the law if they’re serious about this. The bridge was killed by the Paul Martin government by prohibiting construction of a bridge “or similar fixed link”. The only possible “similar” fixed link would be a tunnel. Is the Harper government so in bed with Porter that it would actually change the law to make this happen?

 The real barrier to increased traffic to the airport is the narrow two lane street that runs between a park on one side and a school, community centre and a daycare on the other. It’s already at or above capacity, with the present volume of traffic.

It is hard to believe that any private sector investor would jump at this. The combination of repeated and flagrant breaches of the tripartite agreement – that jeopardize the very existence of the airport if enforced - and shoddy internal governance at the TPA would  give any careful investor serious pause, we would think.

 Surely Porter ought to be paying for this proposed tunnel, as its demise – should that happen - or its move to Pearson, to follow the Air Ontario precedent, would otherwise leave the TPA holding the bag, as has already happened once with the Rochester ferry terminal.

 - Brian Iler

Good old Mr. Holzbauer.
Still waiting for the day that never comes.

Joe

I have some questions. How is a tunnel under the water not a fixed link? Is it going to be moveable? I think not. So it's a fixed link which is against the tripartite agreement. Why is this okay? When will it be noticed that we who live on Bathurst Quay (since 1986) are in closer proximity to an airport than anyone is to most other airports including Pearson? Yes the airport was there when I moved in 24 years ago... but it was a small airport and there was a tripartite agreement in place to protect me and my family from expansion. When will it be noticed that NIMBY is okay when it's about our health and welfare? Why is someone's profit more important than our health and that of our children? Why are we wrong for asking these questions? I'm not evil and I don't believe the people who work for Porter are evil. I just think that it is inappropriate to have a busy airport in the midst of a community.

Rebecca

Bizarre?
Not really. Let's continue to be careful not to feed Porter supporters arguments they can turn against us.
The birds were there long before the pipeline was ever planned, they follow long-standing migration and nesting patterns, and the noise has been proven to present a short term danger to the survival of certain species.
Porter might successfully argue that there was flight activity happening out of the islands long before many of today's waterfront condos ever took shape on a drawing board. Many local residents made a choice to move into these condos (admittedly, likely not expecting the level of nuisance they are subjected to) and noise, although certainly harmful to humans as well, does not kill us quite as fast (I know whereof I speak: from the age of 1 to 11, I lived right smack dab next to a highway which had not been built when my parents moved into the apartment - it became normal background noise to me, but nearly drove my mother mad; didn't kill her, though).
The arguments regarding integrity, the use and abuse of taxpayers money to keep Porter afloat, and how it is likely kept alive by the feds in great part because it serves as a glorified shuttle service to many bureaucrats are very valid indeed. Let's continue to push those, which should carry weight in the eyes of anyone reasonable and unbiased.

Gabrielle David