Quote:
Originally Posted by d_jeffrey
And had a (barely used) airport.
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yes. Mirabel was the quintessential white elephant. Back in the 60s, the federal government envisioned 8 million people living in Montreal by the year 2000, or shortly thereafter. It was clear that (what was then known as) Dorval Airport would be insufficient to handle the expected increase in air travel traffic. Given the level of development on the West Island, expansion to add another runway was not an option. Originally a site on the South Shore was preferred (St. Hubert Area), but the Americans, our dearest friends always, balked at the notion of having planes start their landing approaches over American soil (something to do with Plattsburgh airforce base, maybe some nukes in silos...). So the search was on...to find a greenfield spot far enough away not to be soon engulfed by the then rapidly expanding suburbs of Montreal. Mirabel was the choice. It was supposed to have a direct highway link (Highway 13, never finished), as well as a high-speed rail link (never built) that would wisk visitors to downtown Montreal in under 20 minutes. All but domestic flights were transferred to Mirabel in anticipation of shutting down Dorval (with lots of valuable land that could be repurposed). There was also an idea that supersonic transport was the "wave of the future" which, with its sonic boom, required locations away from intense urban development. Mirabel was also not terribly far from Ottawa.
Changing political and economic (as well as technological, with longer-haul flights) circumstances meant that (a) many overseas flights were switched from Dorval to Pearson (Toronto), (b) governments dithered about when and how to close Dorval, (c) much slower than anticipated population growth precluded the need for the giant capacity of Mirabel (then the world's largest airport facilty by land area), and (d) every provincial goverment reneged on the promises to extend highway 13 and to build the rail link.
Air travel in Montreal stagnated. Air Canada, and other firms, hated having to shuttle passengers from one airport to another. In the end, the length of time required to travel the distance from Mirabel to downtown, and vice versa, sealed its fate.
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