I’m going to New York City tonight. I’ll be flying Porter from the island airport. And I’ll probably walk there.

I’m a big fan of Porter and, while I’ve noticed some minor slippage over the last few years, it’s still one of the best flying experiences in the city.

But the island airport has always been a contentious subject. Stopping a bridge to the island was a fundamental part of our last mayor’s original election campaign.

Today the contentiousness is around expanding the airport so that it flies further using “jets.” Primarily people appear concerned about noise and that the runway will need to be expanded out and into Lake Ontario to a certain extent.

As someone who lives along the waterfront, I really don’t share the same concerns.

For one, the “whisper jets” are supposed to produce the same amount of noise as the current fleet, which don’t bother me in the least. I hear yappy dogs barking more than I hear planes.

Secondly, I think the island airport is fantastic from an economic development standpoint. If we were in Europe, Toronto would have high speed rail connections to New York City, Montreal, and other cities.

But it’s not Europe and we don’t have those rail lines. What we do have though is short haul flights from the island which, similarly, allow people to leave the city from downtown.

This may not seem like a big deal, but an extra hour can mean the difference been making and missing a morning meeting or whether your trip needs to be overnight or not.

If you’re against the expansion, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below. Debate is important.

I can’t believe that Ford is still our mayor. In fact, I still can’t believe we elected him in the first place.

In case you missed it, Toronto’s Police Chief announced today that they are in possession of a video depicting Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine. Outside of Canada, it was reported in the Huffington Post, the Guardian, as well as many other places.

It’s an embarrassment for Toronto. It’s an embarrassment for Canada. 

But even after all of this, Ford came forward today and said that he will not resign:

“I have no reason to resign. I’m going to go back and return my phone calls. I’m going to be out doing what the people elected me to do and that’s save taxpayers’ money and run a great government that we’ve been running.”

Toronto is a global city. And yet we have this profound leadership deficit. Today our successes are in spite of our governance. I know that there is a lot talent in this city so, please, somebody step forward.

We need a new mayor.

Almost 70% of commutes in New York City are done by walking, biking or taking transit. That’s the highest of any American city according to Atlantic Cities:

Probably the biggest driver of this is urban density. That’s because walking, biking and taking transit becomes impractical when you live in a sprawling city. If you want to get people out of their cars, pay attention to the urban fabric of your city.

As someone who used to drive to work (out of necessity), but now relies predominately on public transit, I see one of the big advantages as time. If you’re like me, you probably feel time poor. Taking transit gives me a block of time in which to respond to emails, catch up on reading and generally just think.

In fact, this blog post was written on the subway.