Schools and homes surround just about every airport in the world. Almost 8000 people live in the two zip codes surrounding LaGuardia airport in New York; far fewer than that number live within a comparable distance in New York. The residential neighbourhoods around Pearson International Airport begin directly across the road from the perimeter fence, and more people lived there (as of the 2001 census) than live in the downtown Toronto census tracts between Queen Street and Toronto City Centre Airport. Airports in industrial areas far from any residential area may exist somewhere, but I have never seen one, and no airport in Toronto qualifies.

Ultimately, the question here comes down to this: some Toronto residents evidently think the waterfront such a special place, and a place so unsuited for an airport, that the goal of destroying Toronto City Center Airport justifies the cost, the risk to the medical transportation system, and the shunting of pollution off to neighbourhoods around Pearson. I simply disagree. Partly, I don't think the airport does that much harm to the waterfront, but partly, I think Toronto has a huge number of very special neighbourhoods, that we could improve by removing a road or a rail link, or, yes, by getting rid of Pearson airport. But if we "improved" every neighbourhood this way, we would not have a viable city. We all want the best for our particular neighbourhood, but most of us understand the need to compromise to serve the transport needs for the city as a whole.

John Spragge