On July 8, Globe and Mail columnist John Barber wrote, ‘The islands matter too little to too many’, an opinion piece calling for the land currently occupied by the airport to be turned over to parkland.  He cited the need for better accessibility to ‘Our most beautiful park”.  His solution would be to have airport land revert to parkland and to use the ferry at the foot of Bathurst Street for additional access. 

Currently, the ferry carries airline customers to the island airport only.

There were 132,200 of them in 2007 according to the Toronto Port Authority’s financial statements for that year.

In other words, the airport averaged about 11,000 passengers a month from Jan 1, 2007 to December 31, 2007.
 
During the same period, 1,326,872 or ten times as many people took the ferries at the foot of Bay St. to the rest of the islands, according to Toronto Parks Department statistics.

Indeed, on 30 occasions, the daily passenger count on the park ferries exceeded the airport’s average monthly count.

As well, for 12 out of 12 months, the park ferries passenger numbers far exceeded those of the airport ferry even in the three winter months.

Could the airport be put to better use than to provide for comparatively so few people? 

Do the math. 

When you balance need, John Barber’s call to use the airport for parkland and the airport ferry for greater access makes sense.  But maybe the people who need to use the park aren't as important as the few who choose to use the Island Airport.

Bob Kotyk