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Chris Swail, the city’s director of O-Train planning, said new infrastructure will allow trains to run directly between the airport and Bayview Station if there’s a need for it in off-peak hours. It’s more likely the need would come from a major event at the EY Centre, rather than from the airport, he said.

In designing the Trillium Line expansion and airport spur, the city has been careful not to impact train service between Bayview Station and Riverside South, where the terminus will be Limebank Station. There was some thought early in the planning process to possibly send the odd train from the main line to the airport, but the growing southern suburb needs the rapid transit capacity.

If it was strictly a dollars-and-cents exercise, the airport spur might not be very attractive for all three levels of government funding the Stage 2 program.

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The ridership numbers for the airport link aren’t expected to blow anyone away and Transpo will have to pay millions more to run trains to the airport rather than buses.

Swail said the efficiencies generated by the rail system as a whole will “more than help offset that additional pressure.”

“For us it’s really more about city-building than a business case that was going to be hugely beneficial on Day 1,” Swail said. “We’re the only G7 capital without LRT going to its airport. It’s something people have been talking about for a long time in terms of providing that convenient connection linking to the airport.”