Answers to Constituents: NoJets Waterfront

In this crazy campaign where I’m constantly playing catch-up to the other candidates I try to focus mostly on canvassing and meeting constituents directly, which leaves me little time for this blog. So when Google (who is hosting it) screwed up my special links without notice or reason, I had to scramble to correct them. I was planning to take care of all the pledges and questions I had received by email, but I can no longer do that today. I will answer one easy but still important question submitted via my contact form.

This question pertains to the Toronto Island Airport.

What is your viewpoint in regards to the island airport? Close down? Expand? allow jets? (Anne)

The short and simple answer is no, maybe, NO, no.

Despite my personal views, as a Councillor, I would faithfully respect what my constituents desire, so if I could convince myself that a majority has a different answer to the above question, I would support it. However, given the grassroots movement against jets which I endorsed, and the strong opposition against the airport (prior to its opening), combined with the opening of faster ways to get to and from Pearson (UPx), I think it is next to impossible for a majority of our constituents to ever be in favour of this airport.

Yet most candidates will make promises they may forget once in power. Let me give you a few more personal reasons why this wouldn’t be my case.

Prior to moving downtown, a few years back, I used to own property in the former city of North York and lived there. My house had a view to the ravine – the park practically started in my backyard. As such, it was a rather quiet neighbourhood and I thoroughly enjoyed my backyard, as you can see in this video I had made for an ING Direct competition. The one thing that consistently disturbed our peace was jets, even though we were farther away from Pearson than any of my Ward 10 neighbours are from the Island airport. It wasn’t just noise pollution: I know that jets often dump fuel as they approach the airport, and that their own exhaust is not that environmentally friendly and gets “cleaned” by rain. I worried that the tomatoes and other plants I used to grow in my backyard, using organic methods as much as I could, were potentially affected by this pollution.

Having gone through all that, I would certainly not wish this upon anyone, only for the added convenience of avoiding the 25 minute ride to the Pearson airport (as advertised by UPx). Furthermore, since UPx is struggling to attract the ridership it had projected, it only makes sense to help the city (and ourselves, the taxpayers) recover our investment in this modern, fast way to get to Toronto’s one and real airport, especially as the (re)construction and modernization of Pearson is almost complete.

Even before having received this question, I posted a moment of tranquility on my Instagram – I think that the only flying “objects” on our waterfront should have naturally grown wings.

I am also very likely to answer positively to most of the 17 questions in the WF4all (an organization I also joined) questionnaire (wf4allQs) – but I still need to research some of them, as they are quite detailed and I do not want to give an answer unknowingly. I have converted the PDF received into a Google Doc which I am in the process of answering.

Thank you for your question and please let me know if this answer is satisfactory and/or you have any other questions. You might also be interested in the Cho-contest.

Sources / More info: UPx, WF4all, wf4allQs, gdoc-answers

Andrei Zodian, #nojets, #toronto island airport, #waterfront, #airplane, #air travel, #upx, #union pearson express, #ttc, #transportation, #pollution, #noise, #noise pollution (Tags)