Repeat after the Toronto Port Authority.

This is not the 2003 bridge debate. This is not the 2003 bridge debate. This is not the 2003 bridge debate.

"It's like comparing mountain climbing and scuba diving," board chairman Mark McQueen said yesterday.

In what way?

"Bridges and tunnels," McQueen said in an interview, with an air of nonchalant finality.

After a moment's pause, he elaborated. Unlike a bridge, no taxpayer can call a pedestrian tunnel an eyesore. Unlike a bridge, no sailor can call a tunnel an obstacle.

And in 2003, when David Miller was running for mayor on a promise to kill a proposed bridge to the island airport, Porter Airlines existed only in the dreams of chief executive Robert Deluce. Now, as the port authority awaits word on its bid for federal stimulus funding for a proposed pedestrian tunnel, Porter is a popular entity that flies about 500,000 passengers a year.

"I don't think it's similar at all," Deluce concurred.

Yet many of the key players from the last battle have returned for this one. Miller the would-be bridge slayer is now Miller the would-be tunnel terminator. Deluce the bridge backer is now Deluce the passageway proponent. Community AIR, the residents' group that vocally opposed the bridge, is now vocally opposing the tunnel.

The issue, once more, is whether Torontonians see the intensification of air traffic on the island as a boon or a problem.

Though Deluce said he does not think installing a tunnel would "necessarily affect the total number of passengers" Porter flies, port authority chair McQueen said the proposal is expressly designed to allow Porter to serve more people.

"I would hope so," he said in an interview. "That's the point."

"If that's true," said Community AIR chair Brian Iler, "it's the same fight as 2003 all over again."

There is at least one more major difference between the tunnel debate and the bridge debate. In 2003, Deluce and the port authority argued the bridge was essential to the success of the airport. Yesterday, Deluce and McQueen praised the performance of the current ferry system, saying a tunnel would merely be a preferable alternative.

"It should serve as a good supplement to the ferry," Deluce said. "One thing that's certain is that it'll ... ensure we've got reliable and consistent access to the airport."

The tunnel proposal, McQueen said, did not even exist until February, when the port authority saw opportunity in the stimulus fund announced in the federal budget.

Iler and New Democrat MP Olivia Chow, whose Trinity-Spadina riding includes the airport, call the tunnel an inappropriate use of taxpayer money given the adequacy of the ferries and the existence of pressing infrastructure needs.

The ferry ride to the airport takes only 90 seconds.

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"If your house is leaking, you go and fix the roof first. You don't go and build a greenhouse," Chow said. "Money is tight ... We should focus on potholes, the Gardiner, our old sewage system, community centres, libraries. There's a $500 million backlog of infrastructure that needs repairs."

The port authority says the project will cost $38 million. It is seeking $19 million from the federal infrastructure stimulus fund and $12 million from the provincial government to augment $7 million from its own coffers.

The tunnel must be built by April 2011 to qualify for stimulus money.