I went for a one hour walk this afternoon from about 1-2 and witnessed 8 different Porter flights either landing or taking off.

During my one hour walk, I estimate that I could hear a Porter plane either landing, taking off or taxiing for roughly 50% of the time. At one point, there were two Porter planes on the tarmac waiting to take off and they were waiting for at least 10 minutes.

The noise was quite bad today due to the direction of the winds. When the wind blows north (from the airport to the harbourfront) the noise is quite bad. I find that about 1/3rd of the time this happens.

Porter is operating, I believe 14 planes currently and I think they have 6 more on order and Deluce has stated he could buy more. If we assume that the number of planes operating out of the Island Airport increases by 50%, then on a day like today, you'd hear the Porter planes 75% of the time! Look out!

I know some with say that the Gardiner and Queen's Quay (with streetcars) are louder than the Porter planes. If you are walking right along the water's edge, you hear very little of the street noise. In fact, Waterfrontoronto is putting bridges over the slips so that one can walk along the edge for the entire waterfront. And now that edge has gone from being very quiet to being very noisy.

I could also smell jet fuel fumes for at least half of my walk today. How pleasant!

I did not enjoy my walk today. And I will be moving out soon. But I guess we should be glad that a very few executives (many who have cottages on nice calm, peaceful lakes in Muskoka) can cut their travel time down by a few minutes.

By the way, I am an executive that is lucky enough to afford one of those cottages and who travels to short-haul destinations many times per year. But I will continue to use Pearson when I fly. The harbourfront should be a place that lesser fortunate individuals can go to in order to get some peace and quiet (i.e. get away from the hustle and bustle of the city.)

hdstw