Jets at the island airport are starting to look inevitable-ish

While the rest of us were busy focusing on dead-serious, election-related matters like raccoons and drug tests, the Toronto Port Authority has quietly been making sure that the next mayor, whoever he or she turns out to be, will have an incredibly difficult time preventing the island airport from following through on its controversial expansion plans. The Globe reports that the TPA is already pushing ahead with an environmental assessment of the project, which aims to upgrade the airport’s facilities to allow carriers (mainly Porter Airlines) to fly long-haul jets out of the harbour. The scandalous detail is that city staff are participating in the EA, despite a council decision that was initially understood to discourage city cooperation unless the TPA agreed to place hard caps on passenger volumes, which it hasn’t. Meanwhile, a pedestrian tunnel to the airport is nearing completion. All of this seems to point in the direction of increased air traffic, but opponents can take heart: in Toronto, no transit planning is ever too far along to cancel.