The Island Airport, once part of the park,
now surrounded by recreational usage on all sides

When the announcement was made by the politicians from the three levels of government to fund Waterfront Toronto we were promised a, “Clean, Green Waterfront…with thousands of acres of wetlands, green corridors, parks, forests and wildlife.”

The parks on the Waterfront are used for many different recreational and cultural activities

Some of this has been delivered and more will be built over the next ten years, but we are still left with a busy, polluting airport in the centre of the Waterfront that threatens the Islands, the Harbour, Lake Ontario and the entire redevelopment of the downtown.

Little Norway Park is a stone’s throw from the Island Airport

The position of CommunityAIR is that the Island Airport, formally called the Billy Bishop City Centre Airport, must close. A large industrial use such as this has no place threatening our Waterfront and the greatest recreational resource of our city.

The Martin Goodman trail. Currently there is a plan to close the south lanes of Queens Quay for cycling and pedestrians

In several cities across North America city centre airports have closed. Miegs Field in Chicago and the Edmonton City Centre Airport are two recent examples. The leaders and people of those cities understood that airports close of the downtown are a huge threat to the quality of life of the city.

Thousands enjoy Toronto’s beaches

A bird sanctuary is within 100 metres of the end of the Island Airport’s busiest runway

We are confident that it is only a matter of time before the people of Toronto and our politicians understand that an airport in densely populated communities and in the centre of the most important recreational lands is totally incompatible with the type of city that we want to create.

It is time to close the airport and convert the 215 acres of airport lands—the most spectacular undeveloped property in the entire GTA—to other uses.