Solving the Metro Vancouver Industrial Land Shortage?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Filling in the river is done quite a bit: Iona is only connected to YVR due to infill, Annacis and Mitchell Island was once largely river and was extensively infilled for industrial land, Richmond Island was infilled and connected to mainland Vancouver Dunsumir Island has basically vanished and been merged with Sea Island...

Also, birds don't use the Fraser River channels to rest on the Pacific flyway.

The planned 3rd runway is a parallel runway. What are you talking about? They also have a planned connector between all 3 runways for taxing as well, across Grant McConachie Way.

I was thinking something like this:

Red is industrial, Black is reclaimed land and new rail spur, white is extended 3rd runway after merger with Swishwash Island (likely requiring channelization of the river close to Richmond there.)

Also, less reclamation is needed overall. Also, the north reclamation area isn't free-flowing anyways and is primarily used to store logs.

But this isn't 1890 anymore - that kind of reclamation is now frowned upon. Same reason you think we can't do the estuary runway.
They're actually planning the opposite, just in case you missed it - poking holes in the causeway to allow the Fraser to flow out and create mudflats and salmon migration routes. So yeah, the McDonald Slough will indeed be bird habitat and salmon highway (eventually), and that plan kills any potential infill in the cradle. Edit: ninja'ed by madog. Oh well.

Nah, I got it the first time; by parallel, I mean sitting beside each other. Can't help but notice that your new south runway flattens the smaller airlines' infrastructure... granted, opening up the north field allows them to relocate, but that's still pretty disruptive compared to the alternatives.

While I'm not an expert on ATC, I'm guessing that most commercial jets need most of the runway to take off or land. So if you have two runways next to each other, traffic on the outer runway will likely have to taxi across the inner runway (meaning the inner is effectively closed down until the plane reaches the other side), whereas the officially-planned third runway can operate independently. That would explain why most airports have their landing strips evenly spread around the terminal, or if they can't, they'll open a new terminal next to the new strip. Visual reference here.