[URBAN NOTE] On commuting by air from Niagara to Toronto

[rfmcdonald]

The Financial Post's Kristine Owram describes how, for the well-off, regular air flights might make Niagara a commuter's suburb of Toronto.

The chairman of the Niagara regional council recently met with Porter Airlines CEO Bob Deluce and pitched him on the idea of making the Niagara District Airport into the airline’s “service centre and aircraft parking lot.”

Alan Caslin, chairman of the Niagara regional council, recently met with Porter CEO Bob Deluce and pitched him on the idea of making the Niagara District Airport into the airline’s “service centre and aircraft parking lot.”

“Not only that, but there’s an interesting twist here,” Caslin said in an interview. “The twist is that if you did in fact use Niagara District Airport as an overnight parking lot, the first flight in the morning could be a commuter flight to Toronto Island.”

Caslin argues that this would appeal to a lot of commuters who are tired of dealing with the clogged highways in the Greater Toronto Area.

“If you know anything about the traffic that come into Toronto from Niagara, from Hamilton and surrounding areas, you know that it would be shorter to drive from Hamilton or even Burlington down to Niagara and take an eight-minute flight (to downtown Toronto),” he said.