CommunityAIR appreciates your comments.

CommunityAIR is all-volunteer, with extremely limited resources. And a very clear goal: we are devoted to restoring the lands and harbour now occupied by the Toronto Island airport to park, recreation, and cultural uses. We have a number of ways in which we approach that goal, and a general campaign to encourage people to fly less, just isn’t very high on our list of priorities right  now – not that that wouldn’t be a good thing to do.

It was  painfully obvious that EXPO 2015 was going nowhere. We were pleased, though, to see the proposed use of the airport lands as one of the two fair sites. So, no, we didn’t put any energy into the EXPO issue – as I recall, too,  we were entirely occupied with electing a mayor, and stopping that bridge.

I’d appreciate your sharing your figures on greenhouse gas contributions  – we find it most difficult to access any hard figures on the Q400’s fuel efficiency, and, as a result,  tend to fall back on sources like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which published a report “Aviation and the Global Atmosphere” [See http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/aviation/index.htm paragraph 8.3.2], that contained this chart:

A lot depends on the passenger load – we believe Porter’s passenger loads aren’t much above 50%, which makes its flights even worse than this chart suggests (the industry standard of 70% seems to be used) – it’s also true that the Q400 is about 15% more efficient than a comparable jet (extrapolating from figures available from Bombardier), but that’s not that great, when short haul flights are so far off the chart.

Your point on car v. air travel is fair – depending on passenger loads, they can be, more or less, equivalent to air travel.  A Prius with four passengers would be vastly superior to a half-empty aircraft in greenhouse gases emitted per passenger-kilometre. .Where we really need to go, clearly, is rail, as that can be powered by sustainable energy – something that is just impossible for aircraft.

And yes – there are lots of ways to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Since the need to do so quickly  is painfully obvious, we need to, at least, start with the low-hanging fruit – given the available alternatives, short-haul flying is one of the more obvious ones to pluck.

Interestingly, you refer to the proposed (still, after all these years) Pickering airport – we share a great deal in common with those who are waging such a protracted battle against that – deflating Transport Canada’s wrong-headed infatuation with air travel, to the exclusion of the environmentally friendlier alternatives, would greatly assist us both.

Finally, you refer to medical emergencies.

First – there are no emergency flights that land at the Island airport – there have been some involving stable patients being transferred, but they can land just as easily at Pearson. 

Ambulance helicopters are stationed at the Island Airport, but deliver their emergency patients from pickup points as far away as Barrie and Muskoka directly to hospital helipads. We’ve done a study, using data from Ornge, the agency that operates Ontario’s air ambulance service, that shows conclusively that stationing helicopters at the Island airport adds significant minutes to the time it takes to get a critically ill or injured patient to hospital – minutes that can make a huge difference in the outcome. That’s because 89% of the flights out of the Island Airport are to pickup points north of Steeles. That study is on our website: www.communityair.org

As a result, we’ve asked David Caplan, Minister of Health, in the interests of improving patient care, to move the helicopter base from the Island Airport to Buttonville, or thereabouts. And we’ve asked the Port Authority to release the ambulance service from its lease, so that can happen soon.