It doesn't work that way. Costs would be shared and a board order would be drawn up which would specify future maintenance costs be aportioned to both parties.
Why build a tunnel to the Island Airport?
- Thread starter fmahovalich
- Start date
Uhm, whose taxes do you think finance(d) the government Port Authority? Every single citizen in the flaming country. The only people who wouldn't be paying their fair share of the cost would be the people actually using the bridge: Porter passengers—unless the Authority charged every penny back in tolls and rent.
But how attractive would a Toll Bridge Proposal be?
If the boatride to get you to the airport's useless, so is a car or busride. Don't you want to get to the airport? The boat is doing the job. What you have to do to justify a bridge to replace it is show why a bridge is better. A whole lot better, considering how cheap a little boat is, compared to a three or four storey high road bridge.
1) If there's no increase in traffic, the expense of building a bridge to do what's aleady being done is a total waste. Only makes sense to the degree it improves things—if you think more traffic is an 'improvement'. Porter certainly would say it is. Absolutely disagree that traffic would stay the same. It's purpose is to bet more folks onto more planes.
2) New roads don't 'alleviate traffc' they just move it to other places, and actually increase it. People drive because they can. You'll have to explain the 'existing' traffic lin-ups for a passenger ferry you walk to and from, that you say the bridge would eliminate. And while you're at it, where do the cars all go when they get to the Island. Oh Goody! New parking structures and open-air lots.
3) "A paid employee" to run the ferry? Get real, there's an entire crew, just like there'll be whole crew operating the bridge (if and when) even if you never notice them. And the bridge—just like the ferry—will need maintenence, lots of maintenence and paint and such because it's a huge structure (especially compared to a dinky-wee boat w/ a coupla diesel engines). Heck even the painter's scaffold for a bridge is a sizeable and costly thing.
4) Which brings us back to access ramps—another part of the bridge to be financed, constructed and maintained. Last proposal I saw had the cityside one as a solid wall going all the out to Queen's Quay, completely cutting off the west Harbourfront from the east. Not a nice thing to do to all those residents and other citizens just for the sake of some dozen or so passengers per plane imagining they've saved a minute or two in a couple hr. trip.
You still haven't shown any reason why a bridge would benefit anyone, except Porter and its landlord, and that only if it does what you say it wouldn't: increase traffic. Nor have you addressed the downsides we'd all be living with and paying for.
Case not made.
There is absolutely no need for either a bridge or a tunnel to the Island.
I'm no David Miller fan, but on this he is 100% correct. It's simply not needed. Next they will want to build a parking garage on the Island (because where are you going to put all those cars?), then they will want to build a casino, then a hotel. (Slippery slope.)
The ferries work just fine.
My personal opinion is that the Island Airport should be razed and the Island made into a park, however, the airport is there and I accept that fact. That said, I do no want the utilization of the Island Airport increased over and above what it can handle right now.
As previously stated there are thousands of other places in the City where infrastructure money could be spent wisely. All of the work desperately needed. (Even replacing watermains would be a better place to spend infrastructure money.)
I'm no David Miller fan, but on this he is 100% correct. It's simply not needed. Next they will want to build a parking garage on the Island (because where are you going to put all those cars?), then they will want to build a casino, then a hotel. (Slippery slope.)
The ferries work just fine.
My personal opinion is that the Island Airport should be razed and the Island made into a park, however, the airport is there and I accept that fact. That said, I do no want the utilization of the Island Airport increased over and above what it can handle right now.
As previously stated there are thousands of other places in the City where infrastructure money could be spent wisely. All of the work desperately needed. (Even replacing watermains would be a better place to spend infrastructure money.)
