Planning for growing demand: regional airport hub?

NRU
Oct. 14, 2015
By Geordie Gordon

Toronto Pearson and other airports in southern Ontario represent one of the most significant planning challenges for the future of the region. With Pearson projected to reach capacity within the next 20 years, other airports will need to play a greater role in accommodating demand. Coordination and strong ground transportation connectivity will be key to such a network’s success.

In a recently released white paper commissioned by the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, Urban Strategies partner and report co-author Joe Berridge, highlights the need to consider developing network of regional airports in the region. Each with its own function and speciality, coordinated through a regional hub.

“The difficulty is that Pearson is going to reach capacity. So what are the roles that other airports might take up to relieve the capacity restraints at Pearson?” he told NRU.

Berridge says that as the region continues to grow, so too must the air travel capacity.

“We are right at the beginning of starting this conversation, we’re saying, we have a big problem. It’s a nice problem to have, because it’s a problem of growth, but the Toronto airport system is about to join a pretty exclusive club of half a dozen world airport hubs because of our population growth, because of our economic growth.

What we have right now is going to bump into a ceiling in about 20 years or so. Airports take so long to plan that we have got to have a game plan for what we’re doing after that,” he said.

GTTA airport planning director Eileen Waechter says that conversations with other airports are just beginning to take shape.

“I think what we’ve decided to do - when we saw the problem facing us, and the growth coming and the challenges we were going to face - [was to] start talking to others as part of this conversation, and what we have done over the past six to eight months is simply just started telling that story...We have been sharing that [story] with [other airports]. They are all excited about the opportunities and they’re excited when they see the growth themselves. So now we’re going to organize a workshop with all of us later in the year, ideally, if schedules permit, and start thinking about how we might together start to sort ourselves out and find a way to respond to this challenge,” she told NRU.

The possibility of a regional airport network raises questions about the roles other airports in the region might play, and whether additional airports are needed.

In a 2011 Needs Assessment report, Transport Canada determined that southern Ontario would require an additional airport sometime between 2027 and 2037. In 2013 the federal government announced an approach to developing the federal lands in Pickering that could include a future airport. On July 31 of this year, Transport Canada announced that they had appointed independent advisor Dr. Gary Polonsky to study the economic case for the development of the federal Pickering lands.

Pickering mayor Dave Ryan said that UOIT and Durham College retired president Polonsky will be meeting with stakeholders. Over a year he will be consulting on when and what type of airport should be developed, as well as how the airport should be developed and operated.

“Dr. Gary Polonsky has been appointed...he is the sole advisor to the transport minister on how best to develop the economic lands...including the airport,” Ryan told NRU “Dr. Polonsky has already made it known that he is going to be speaking with stakeholders and people that have specific interests. We know that there are vocal residents, both pro and con, we know that the municipal governments surrounding the airport lands are supportive of the airport.”

It is not certain at this point whether Pickering will be a part of any upcoming workshop with other regional airports, but Ryan thinks it is likely.

“I anticipate that Pickering will be [part of the workshop], [however] I have not had any formal invitation at this point,” he said.

Land Over Landings, an advocacy group opposing the Pickering airport, vice-chair and research head Joe Miller questions the need for further airport expansion, when other regional airports, including Pearson are still under capacity.

“[If] you look at the GTAAs numbers, from 2000 until the end of last year [2014], sure Pearson’s air passengers, accumulated, are 33 per cent higher roughly, then they were in the year 2000. The number of aircraft movements in the same 14-year interval, grew by 1 per cent.” He told NRU. “I agree the white paper is now starting to recognize other issues, like the other airports in southern Ontario have a role to play, because Hamilton and Waterloo international airports, which are also scheduled air passenger airports, are running well below capacity and they have a role to play in relieving some of the growth [pressure]. As well they’re starting to recognize, gee, do we have the ground transportation infrastructure in place to begin to move this number of people in and out of Pearson airport.”

The white paper also focuses on the impact that growing air travel will have on the need for transit links to regional airports and Berridge says that is definitely part of the equation.

“None of the airports, other than Pearson, are particularly well served by any form of transit, and the question when we’re planning the airport system, we have to say not only what is the runway capacity, and terminal capacity, but also what is the ability to get people successfully to those places?” he said.

Waechter agrees that transit is a key issue for airport capacity.

“[Pearson] is already experiencing problems with groundside congestion for our passengers and our employees. If we’re at 40-million [passengers] now, and we’re going to 65-million [passengers] in the next little while how is it that these employees and passengers are going to get to the airport with ease. And we need to make sure we’re offered a full menu of ground transportation service. We have a high-speed rail link to downtown [Toronto], we have some great bus service with the TTC rocket, and Mississauga and Brampton also provide bus service, but these things all need to scale up, and this is why we’re having the conversation with the transit agencies and Metrolinx and the province. How do we make sure people get to and from [the airport], how do we increase that mode share shift to transit? Each of the other areas, cities, regions and airports are going to encounter similar challenges, [albeit] maybe not at the same scale.”