The Worst Part of Canada's Biggest Airport (and How to Improve It) 

If you enjoy this video make sure to share it around! We really need Pearson to start talking about a better transit centre!

Another RMTransit banger! I'm surprised you haven't been hired by the TTC or Metrolinx to redesign the GTHA's transportation network already!

Love your concept for the bus terminal at Pearson. While your underground concept for rail is great, I doubt our leaders are going to spend additional money on tunnelling after wasting it on that guideway for UPX Compared to the rest of North America, UP Express is not entirely bad. Had it been electrified, and had the elevated guideway been built without sharpe curves, we could have had much better travel times. REM will probably Canada’s darling for Airport Transit connections once the Dorval extension opens. Having ridden Tokyo’s NeX and Keisei Skyliner, we can of course do much better in Toronto.

Years ago a client visiting from Germany said to me "I love your city. Hate your airport" Great ideas you have here, I hope Metrolinx and the GTAA is watching this.

I'm glad you mentioned The Jewel at Changi! It's great when airports do awesome things for those who wanna go to the airport just because rather than to actually fly somewhere. JFK International for example has the TWA Hotel which incorporates the TWA Flight Center by Eero Saarinen (who also worked on Dulles and the Gateway Arch) with two buildings added, a rooftop pool offering wonderful views of the different planes taking off and landing, and even a cocktail lounge inside a preserved Lockheed L-1649 Starliner, the last model of the Lockheed Constellation line of airliners. For those who are plane spotters or love aviation history in general, it's heaven. They also fully restored the Solari flipboard inside the Flight Center! The Jewel's façade was designed by a consortium of architects, led by Moshe Safdie who also designed Marina Bay Sands! The landscape architect was Peter Walker and Partners, who co-designed the National 9/11 Memorial! The Jewel currently houses more than 2,000 trees and palms, and over 10,000 shrubs covering a total area of more than 21K square meters. There are some 120 species, originating from all around the globe! Its majestic indoor waterfall stands at 40 meters high, with recirculating rainwater pumped to the roof to free fall at up to 37,850 liters per minute. And that's not mentioning the things those transiting at Changi can enjoy like a free 24-hour cinema and a butterfly garden!

Such a fantastic video! As an airline pilot based at YYZ, improved intermodal connectivity at Pearson would be incredible for the vast amount of airport staff and aircrew as well. The amount of time spent looking for parking in the staff parkade at Viscount can be insane sometimes! Greater transit options out of Pearson could take so many more cars that airport employees use off the road, most of which are single-occupancy anyways.

Really appreciated this video, and I'm glad you noted the inclusion of "normal" shopping. One thing I like about European train stations and airports (or at least the ones I used in Switzerland) is that the station is "integrated into the daily fabric of society" - I see no reason why such a facility couldn't have a "full-on" grocery store to serve not only people transiting through, but to also serve locals with their (hopefully) daily shopping.

I made a post on Reddit a while ago about how bad the transport to New York's airports is. No direct subway to JFK, the ridiculously priced airtrains at JFK and EWR, and no option other than a bus to LGA. The response from New Yorkers seemed to just be "just get a taxi", which kinda missed the point of what I'm saying, but just highlights how poor the airport connections are.

Pearson airport has been a godsend when I wait for suburban buses to restart after going to toronto clubbing at late night. Few places are open and accessible at 4-5am

Yes. I agree that Pearson REALLY needs a transit hub, especially if it means having multiple services connect to it.

You can even find good examples of solid public transit at airports in the US! Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport station on the DC Metro for example, served by the Blue and Yellow Lines, is located across Smith Boulevard from Terminal 2 and its mezzanine is directly connected to Level 2 of the terminal (security checkpoints/gates level) by two pedestrian bridges. The first city in North America to offer direct rapid transit service to its major airport was Cleveland as Airport station on its Red Line opened in November 1968! Even St Louis's Lambert International has stations at Terminal 1 and 2 for its MetroLink system! That being said, European and Asian airports very much serve as a role model for how to easily connect passengers from the airport to their final destination without needing to worry about how much you'll need to rent a car. Frankfurt Airport for example has stations for both regional services and long-distance trains like ICE high-speed services. Frankfurt Airport long-distance and Limburg Süd station are the only railway stations in Germany that are served exclusively by long-distance trains. Paris's Charles de Gaulle on the other hand has the RER B, CDG Express (starting in 2025), and TGV high-speed services which even includes a stop at Marne-la-Vallée-Chessy for those traveling to Disneyland Paris.

Chicago-O’Hare built a new beautiful intercity bus terminal attached to its new consolidated car rental facility (“Multi-Modal Facility”). It’s also served by two local bus routes. The biggest local bus transfer transfer center near O’Hare probably remains the Rosemont CTA station, located one Blue Line stop away.

Making better inter-city rail connections could reduce the need for connecting flights from Pearson to London, Ont/Sarnia/Windsor/Kingston, and even Montreal & Ottawa. I think we need to reduce the number of flights overall, largely by making train more attractive for those trips under 600 km or so. However, the Kitchener line train goes quite close to the Region of Waterloo Airport, so with frequent trains and station + shuttle near the Waterloo airport it could take some pressure off of Pearson's flight volumes.

Thanks for your video Reece! This is exactly what we need - a public discussion of a Pearson transit terminal. It feels like much of the discussion has happened in secret. Your ideas are good.

This is a fantastic idea, RM. Would you also have additional platforms for a potential extension of line 4 to Pearson (and possibly beyond)? I really like the idea of extending the GO line under Pearson to Mississauga City Centre, a high speed rail connection is definitely needed to there.

Edmonton's Valley Line SE LRT has officially opened today!

UP needs to run 24/7 and GO Trains from Union need extended hours. Taking public transit after work hours to the suburbs is a pain at best and near impossible after the UP closes for the night.

Good feedback on the airport, but as an aside, I also really like that red hat!

When it comes to airport railway systems, the best example is in Frankfurt-am-Main, which is at the edge of a high-speed railway line and can be reached by so many high-speed routes.

Whenever I travel to TO I "ride the rocket" from Pearson, a wonderfully mis-named transport option, as that bus can end up being incredibly slow getting caught in traffic on the highways it travels down. The fact that there's no decent shelter whilst waiting for that bus, and that I end to visit during winter, is not great. I wasn't even aware of the existence of the UP trains until a couple of years ago, but given that it's over 3 times as expensive as TTC it's never felt worth it to me. I also tend to want to go somewhere that has a TTC station, rather than getting to Union, so I'd just have to change to TTC anyway and incur another ticket cost. What you're suggesting here is exactly what Pearson needs. Who knows, we might even see something like this before 2050. 🙂

The thing you mentioned about “people might go to the airport even if they are not flying” is definitely a more of a thing outside North America, but there are plenty of places inside where that is common. Take SFO, when I lived in San Francisco as a young child, I remember Taking BART to go ride the SFO airtrain just for fun around the terminals. Now most people wouldn’t do this for fun, but there was a substantial number of people without luggage riding it. It shows that there are examples of good airport connections in North America, even if the majority good get upgrades (you can do better LAX)

Logan Airport in Boston has slightly better transit service - there's a Blue Line subway station at the west boundary of the airport with shuttle busses to the terminals and there's a Silver Line bus "rapid transit" direct from the terminals to South Station downtown where you can change to Amtrak, commuter rail, subway, and commuter and intercity busses. The Silver Line and shuttle busses drop you off and pick you up at curbside right outside each terminal.

Last year I flew to Toronto Pearson from Vancouver and ended up waiting an obscene amount of time for our baggage to arrive. After we finally got our baggage after at least 45 minutes - 1 hour of waiting. Then we had to rush as fast as possible to get onto the Union Pearson express to catch a train to Windsor. We nearly missed the Union Pearson because of how long it took us to get from the baggage area to the station. It also wasn't a fast trip and we had to run to catch our train the moment the UP stopped at Union. That was our first experience with the UP, so yeah, not great first impressions. Our trip back to the airport after getting back from Windsor was fine though, if not a bit slow.

The TTC - UP connections are horrendous. If you are elderly or physically challenged, the connection at Dundas West requires that exit the TTC and walk outside several hundred metres to get to the UP station - a poorly signed route which involves crossing Dundas St.! Similarly, the distance between the UP stop at Union and the TTC and GO can be an impediment and it is again poorly signed. It seems that the TTC and UP don't talk to each other, after travelling back from Finland in 2022 ( over 15 hours travelling) I got off the UP at Dundas West to get on the Bloor-Danforth line only to find the BD line was closed for signal work and that I'd have to take a shuttle bus to Ossington....this TTC closure was not announced on the UP upsetting several people (to make matters worse the shuttle bus didn't actually go into Ossington but let us out a block north.

Im afraid we are going the LAX direction. It seems as though no one wants to make YYZ a proper hub because it’s privately run And while I like the UP Express, it’s a massive inconvenience if you live outside of the city core. For me in Durham it’s a 55 minute train to Union, then a transfer to the up. For a family of 4 it’s close to the cost of parking for a week. So we loose cost savings, increase time and still have the need for a car once you get to the final stop Great video as always.

Unfortunately, Toronto Pearson‘s problem isn’t just unique to Toronto. Except for a very select few airports, North American airports have terrible connections, and some even have none at all, like both Houston airports, LaGuardia, and Detroit. The only airports I’d say that have pretty decent connections in North America are San Francisco, JFK, and even Chicago O’Hare, well sorta. San Fran and JFK probably have the best and even JFK would benefit from a subway line that goes directly to the airport instead of a transfer. O’Hare at least has a subway line that goes directly to the airport

Why do I get the overpowering feeling that you do far more city planning than most of the Departments of Transportation or city planners all over this world?

Added to my "Fly by Rail" playlist 👍

I had a 23 hour layover (Thanks to Air Canada to mess my Vacation) and I wanted to vheck in my 2x23 kg bags before I go tot he hotel. This is what a Pearson employee told me :"Bud, I am not sure who's gonna win the Stanley cup, but I am god damn sure that if you check in these bags before 3 hours of your flight, it will be lost"

I would say Gatwick is the airport in London with the best rail links. You have lots of direct connections to lots of place both North and South with Thameslink, Southern, and the Gatwick Express, and one to the West with Great Western. Whereas Heathrow is at the end of two lines with links only into central London. Heathrow is much better for bus connections though.

Interesting that you make a video about a union station west a couple days after plans for a union station east are released for Pickering 🤔

I agree it's lacking a lot. However, I recently travelled from Spadina -> Bloor -> terminal 3 by rail and whilst the connections and moving suitcases around wasn't the smoothest experience it was 100 times better than Dublin Ireland where I had to wait an hour after arrival for the first coach home and it just didn't show up 🙃

The part about going to the airport without having a flight is funny to me, because when i take the train I regularly stop at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Not because i want to or anything, but because its just a regular stop on one of the busiest and most important train lines in the country. I sometimes think about how insane it is I can take an 8-minute bike ride to the station where a train will bring me right into the very heart of one of Europe's busiest airports.

Landed in Pearson in 2009 at like 5am and had to either freeze outside waiting for the bus or wait 2h for the train service to start or something like that. I was really surprised how such a massive airport had such a bad connection.

I live in London and my transit options to go 150km to Pearson are either a $3 city bus ticket to free 20 minute flight (Air Canada typically makes booking from either airport the same price), a $75 3 hour bus ride, or $80 2hr45 train (including waiting at Union + 25 minutes on the UP). I think the bus is as slow as it is, because it stops a few times, and serving cities from the 401 is not fast (10 minutes to get off highway to bus stop, 10 minutes to get back to same interchange). In past experience they'll only take it until Burlington, then go on side highways that actually intersect with Guelph/KW/London.

Logan Airport in Boston is definitely one of the best with regards to transit access in the US; second to DC. Sucks the Blue Line doesn't directly go to Logan but there is plenty of free transit access from there that loops around Logan every ~15 mins.

Great ideas and sorely needed. Bonus marks for including the Canadian English term "parkade"!

I take the UP to my job at the airport every single day and I think it’s important to expand the frequency and size of the UP cars because it’s not just travellers and holiday goers that use it. Electrify the line and use modern trains with faster trips with less waiting.

I’ve taken the bus to and from pearson many times and this nailed everything. Great job!

Well said Reece. Very good concept.

It amazing that the Go Bus 91 ffrom Finch Subway Stn only stops at Terminal one so you have to spend 30 minutes with luggage to get there if you fly with anybody but AC FROM OVERSEAS. It would only take 5 minutes to go to 3. Why Go and Metrolinx is the worse

Just the title itself is spot on

Now I'm curious what you'd do for Dorval Airport

Verry Good Video. I like your idea.

I just traveled for the first time to Toronto last month, and I understand you're advocating for more of a transit hub for the surrounding area instead of strictly a train station from the city core, but I must say, I was a little confused about this vid. I flew into Bishop but flew out of Pearson, and maybe this is just me speaking as someone who lives in Chicago and LA before that, but I was VERY impressed with the UP Express. I understand you have issues with it being diesel, which is fair, but I didn't notice the winding viaduct at all. Frankly, as a bit of an avgeek I loved being up high enough to see all the planes/airlines on the ramp. And I didn't find it to be very slow. I got on UP at Bloor and honestly, I wished I could have spend MORE time on the train. Plenty of luggage storage, USB ports for every seat, and a smooth ride. Didn't even take 20 minutes for me to get to Pearson. All that for the cost of like $6 CAD (even cheaper for a Yank like me)? I'll take all of that you got. UP Express was one of the unexpected highlights of a fun trip. Loved Toronto's transit. So much better than Chicago's, which has major gaps. Obviously LA's too, and to get to ORD or LAX is a huge pain. Not possible by rail in LA, but the Blue Line to ORD is only convenient from downtown or the west side. Really not practical via train from from the northside. So I was enamored with the UP Express, and I'm surprised to hear you diss it. My main thrust is that your airport link from the downtown area and western neighborhoods is amazing and you shouldn't take it for granted. It's 1000x better than sitting on the slow ass Blue Line making stops at a half dozen stations in highway medians.

Visited Toronto and Montreal this summer. Was appalled at the slow speed of the UP coming out of the airport, but happy to have a train. Then went to Montreal and was even more appalled to be squeezed into a bus (although the name, 747, was humorous). As someone from Vancouver, it's shocking that the larger cities of Toronto and Montreal have such mediocre transit to and from their airports.

I find the DC subway very convenient in going to both Dulles and National. DC had the best subway in America. Meanwhile NYC subway does not connect to any airports

I love your videos. Your should work as a consultant for Metrolinx as you truly have a great vision for transit planning.

Two thoughts from a current employee of an Airport Operator. Otherwise great video bud! 1. Eliminate shops, restaurants and stores on the public side of terminals to prevent unnecessary loiter time in your ticketing and pre-screening areas. Offer a gate pass system so that customers who’ve come to shop and not fly are able to pass through screening to access the secure side. 2. Electric Busses are more of a hassle than they’re worth. We bought two. Up-time for those assets were about 38% with the rest of which being spent charging or undergoing routine mx. Diesel or Biodiesel are still the most effective option for vehicles that are used to run a 24 hour service.

You should look into the St. Catharines GO station, I think you’d have fun with it. Tons of land around the station ready to be built on, but they have no plan. There’s opportunity to make it a great transit city, with connecting transit lines to the go station from across the city. The Niagara GO line is full of potential is crazy, you’d have a lot of fun with it. The region has zero vision and a video like yours will most defiantly be taken seriously by them.

I used to transit through Pearson from UP to a MiWay Bus and visa versa. It was a journey and a headache on a good day.

Topic Suggestion: An update on the KW Ion light rail line. I read an interesting article comparing the ridership numbers with Ottawa. As a resident of Cambridge I would also like to get your thought on the proposed extension. There's some really interesting documents they have posted online outlining the proposed route. Great video on the airport, I wish the people who end up designing transit thought about it as deeply as you do

This was a great video. You highlighted an issue we know in the US all too well. I've traveled through a lot of US airports and if you're lucky you even get any public transportation/connections at all. They love to do the people movers and air trains connecting terminals and maybe parking lots, but it's not often enough that we get a true downtown connection by rail from our airports.

Meanwhile Chicago: Metra NCS line run 6 trains a day on the weekdays and there's no weekend service...

keep on pushing, someone may actually take note of your suggestions.

I want the UP express to be rebuilt into just a straight up through-running electrified GO line at the same time as a Lawrence Subway that goes out to Scarborough, as the Crosstown is a potato that I can already tell will be slow and inefficient.

Very interesting ideas.. time to update my hypothetical maps!

If you're going tunnel west under the airport (which transport Canada might have some questions about) it's about the same distance to the Brampton Gateway Terminal as it is to Mississauga City Centre. Seems like light rail route with two branches connecting to the Hazel McCallion LRT might be the answer if we're dreaming in technicolour.

very nice concept, maybe we’ll get to experience it 60 years from now!

I heard that domestic travel within Canada is insanely expensive - is that true? A few fellow Aussies told me, and mentioned mobile phone planes (esp data) is bizarrely expensive.

The video I’ve needed

Totally agree with your recommendations. I don't think, however, that the average transit rider will care about the spur line for the UP from Pearson to the main Kitchener line tracks. I think it's too short of a section to notice it's slow. And the elevated view is so great.

GO Transit is now offering airport transport from Pickering. It makes around two or three stops along the way, Scarborough Town Center, Yorkdale Mall and I believe one other stop. This is nice but a nice high speed train would be better.

Sacramento added a new airport terminal awhile back, and has more capacity than needed. Now a light rail connection is being added to their existing small metro area rail network. It seems the rail connection should have been in place long before the new airport terminal was added.

I visited YYZ a few weeks ago and it was crazy to me how it is even possible to run an Airport that size with just one, not even proper, rail connection (the UP Express DMU's are tiny). Even smaller Airports like ARN, BER or FUK would probably cause the surrounding road network to collapse, if all passengers were about to arrive by car or Taxi/Uber. Also the transit at Bloor is a mess. Why do I have to walk ~5 minutes at the street, if the Subway stops just under the UP Express platform?

Here on the island of Ireland there is only two airports with a "train station" Kerry airport and Belfast City airport. I am a local of County Clare and we have been trying to get the government to fund a rail spur to Shannon town and Shannon international airport for approximately 40 years but it's like talking to a wall. I am only 22 and have recently joined the campaign. Wish us luck. Also your videos are very informative and would be very helpful for fixing some of the problems we have here in Ireland.

I'd be really curious to hear what you would suggest to improve Square One as a transit hub. The fact that there is no direct route to Union Station makes getting into the city from the suburbs unnecessarily cumbersome

Until I was 3.5hrs early for a flight from Nice to Madrid (only operated by Iberia, and their only route there), I thought landside options seemed illogical, but now I’m more on board with the idea

You should take a look at BC Ferries sometime, as well as land based transit connections to their terminals.

if we have decent high speed rails, we don't need domestic flights. In the meantime, Extend UPX to Kennedy Station to serve the East End. Move the bus stop closer to the terminal entrance, with clear signage and dedicated bus shelters, move kiss and fly drop offs to Viscount.

Please speak about the lack of washrooms on TTC Subway stations.

I really wish this would get built one day

Restrooms with showers would be amazing at an airport! Why is this not a more widespread thing!?

I visited Toronto in 2007, long before the UP Express. Had to wait for the Airport Rocket, which only went as far as Kipling station. My hotel was around the corner from St. Andrew station, so that meant changing trains at St. George station. Not exactly a short trip. So the UP Express would have been more convenient, despite its flaws.

Hey, it's still a lot better than it was a few years ago. Last time I visited Toronto in 2011, the UP Express didn't exist, and the only way to get to my uncle's house in Mississauga without an expensive taxi was him picking me up from the airport!

Brilliant! It will be good that the Kitchener line should be running q 15 mins or so as part of the RER program. Amd electrified. So as to not stink up your pretty new station!

Airport was never designed transit friendly or even car/passenger friendly. Hate having to drive from Hamilton to use it. Being stuck in traffic on a bus is no better than in a car.

Thanks for the--as always, great video! Having an airport be a hub for citizens who are AND aren't flying blew my mind, but makes so much sense. I want it! I find airports exciting and fun places to be in general, so if I had more excuses to be there even if I wasn't travelling, I'm there! Also, I'd like to see VIA increasing the frequency of their Union trains to improve regional connections to the airport. I often fly into YYZ to see family 2 hours (drive in no traffic) east of Toronto, and I always try and plan my flights so that I can take the UP Express to Union and catch a train east, but it almost never works out for me to do so without waiting at Union for hours. It's really frustrating! The only alternatives seem to be getting family to commute 4-5 hours round trip or have them pick me up in Oshawa, which just aren't satisfying solutions.

I was thinking about this the other day. Maybe an LRT going up and down hwy 27 to connect humber (and finch lrt) to the eglington crosstown west extension (and I guess also the race track), then run it down the hydro coridor to kipling station. It would connect a lot of the convention centres together with transit, and also the bloor subway to the airport.

Was at Pearson a few months ago, drove from north of the city. What a nightmare. Signage was poor with little warning. Used to exit 409, find your terminal on sign and drive straight to it. Not any more. The UP train has to be better than the Kipling bus was.

I wanna live in your world. this sounds great

There are some airports close to my hometown that dont have a rail connection or a very bad one and i dont even consider flying from there. The different realities are crazy sometimes.

They should look into building a high speed rail that connects Pearson Airport to other cities like KW, London, and Kingston. It's gonna open up so many possibilities and make traveling to and from Pearson much, much easy.

I had a conversation with my father regarding the idea of building an airport in Pickering. I have been referring to the topics and solutions suggested by you, NotJustBikes, CityBeautiful and other urban/transit design channels that could make getting to Pearson more digestible without the need to uproot farmland and natural spaces in the proposed Pickering airport site. This video will surely help in making that point! Keep doing these cool videos! I will certainly be coming back for more!

I feel like especially for local bus routes that they should still go into the terminals, like the 52 Lawrence West. You get on/off the bus right at the terminal with little walking and no train required and its very convenient rather than walking 10 minutes/get that train

Pearson should be a transit hub and should get rid of all of the parking and ban cars.

I just wanted to mention Oshawa has recently released more updates for their potential rapid transit plans in the future if you wanted to look into it for a potential video!

I am in th Buffalo NY area. YYZ is my go to airport for international travel. Sure the Buffalo Airport has plenty of flights, but it is SO much nicer to get a direct flight say to Europe than to have to fly in many cases out of the way (Detroit, Chicago, or any major hub south), or worse go through the already congested and relay prone NYC regional airports such as JFK & Newark. It's also usually 20-35% less expensive to fly those direct routes. As we all know the traffic has gown incredibly since I first started going to YYZ when we moved to the Buffalo area in the mid 1980's. Back then there was easy/free flowing traffic between the international bridges and Burlington. Even then traffic was easy to Ford Drive and things really got busy close to downtown. Today anything east of Burlington is slow most of the time and a near parking lot during peak times. There is the 407 expressway and most of the time I'll pay th $18 each way to take that for all of 20 odd miles to save a lot of time and slow traffic. None the less, the last 15 miles to the airport are usually between busy and stop and go traffic. I would love to be dropped off at the Burlington Go Train station and have a smooth predictable ride to the airport. That would be so much easier for anyone dropping us off, or when I have to return the favor for others. I grew up in the Netherlands and remember the train station being built in front of the main terminal building at Schiphol. Over time the airport has grown so much that it expanded overtop of the station and now it's centrally integrated into the main public departure / arrival hall. It's a great example for Toronto to see how well it can integrate into regional rail. It would be interesting to see how easy it would be to convince people to not have to deal with modern heavy Toronto road traffic and just get on a train that gets you right to the heart of the Airport.

As a Londoner who flies to Pearson twice a year and travels on to Brantford, I like your plan, but I have 1 issue with it and 1 suggestion. My issue is the site you propose it's pretty far from the terminals, which would be quite annoying. I honestly think the road spaghetti ought to be massively simplified first, and then build the station in the space left. There's just a totally unnecessary number of spurs and slip roads. If you improve transit connectivity, there should be less road traffic, so it shouldn't be an issue. My suggestion would be to take that extra rail spur you mentioned and build a new rail line from Pearson to Hamilton (and maybe beyond), that would go under the airport, then pop up next to the Mississauga Transitway and follow the 403 and hydro corridors down to Hamilton. I reckon it would be quite cheap to build apart from the tunnel under the airport, and it would massively improve rail connections to the west of Toronto.

Seems like a decent plan. Anything that reclaims parking space into more valuable property is worthwhile.

UP express is great yo and it was super expensive to build - could extend service though

Long time Ontario residents will tell you that GTAA has been doing nothing for transit but collecting parking fees until Metrolinx brought the money for the UP. Without the UP Pearson has, like, nothing but parking lots and long walks in the snow. It's an airport ruined by MBAs despite the better intentions of architects. Generally a Toronto vibe, really.

The light rail part of the concept especially sounds genius.

Well that's coincidental... Just came back through Pearson on Thursday. What would have been an hour and a half drive to the airport became a 4 hour odyssey on public transit. And, aside from the UP Express doors not opening for a few minutes at Union, nothing was running particularly behind schedule. I made it to my gate 4 minutes before boarding, and that only happened because security was pretty empty at the time. Pretty sad state of affairs.

Re: Parking around the airport, height limitations will keep any buildings below a few storeys and noise will make residential and some commercial unfeasible.

You are a lowkey hero. It's so common for TO'ians to claim TO is a world-class city and mnh, I guess in some specific ways, but we are woefully mid in other ways. I've been slushed before waiting for that airport express TTC bus and it's experiences like that which come to mind when I doubt our status in the world. Who knows, maybe you calling it out will have a ripple effect in the future.

Germany's airports of Frankfurt and Düsseldorf already have 200mph high-speed train stations, and ofc they also provide local and regional public transit (trains, light rail aka "S-Bahn", and buses). From December 2025 onwards, high-speed trains can directly reach both Berlin-Brandenburg airport (thanks to a new link called "Dresdner Bahn" which halves travel time from Berlin city center to 20 minutes) and Stuttgart airport (after the completion of the massive 10bn "Stuttgart 21"-project). The airports of Cologne-Bonn and Leipzig-Halle are worthwhile mentioning, too. Sadly, this form of intermodality is a thing that's often completely missing in other countries like Spain (e.g. Madrid, Barcelona airports), France (e.g. Paris-Orly, Marseille airports); but Italy's Rome Fiumicino “Leonardo Da Vinci” International Airport can be reached directly with high-speed trains from other Italian city centers with no need to change trains.

The mesh network is the most efficient and has redundancy built in. I wouldn't try to move backbones. Instead, develop hubs close to the airport star hub and ring with aerial connections. Bus nets from bus and train could then also mesh. I like the hubs you've brought up for bus and plane.

The trains are nice and all, but the UP should really be electrified (along with a majority of the GO network, if not all of it). I also love the idea of a "Union Station West" at the airport, and totally agree with the points Reece said in the video.

I like this plan way better than the one GTAA planned just off Viscount