Billy Bishop Layover: Toronto's Waterfront
Part of the full Toronto Layover: CN Tower and Old Town, YYZ
Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport sits on an island 121 metres off the foot of Bathurst Street, close enough to downtown Toronto that the walk east along Queens Quay reaches a Bach-shaped garden, a manufactured beach and a free contemporary art gallery inside half an hour.
Billy Bishop’s runway sits on an island in the harbour
Toronto’s second airport is a single island runway in the inner harbour, at the western end of the Toronto Islands, with the downtown towers standing directly behind the terminal across a few hundred metres of water. Porter Airlines and Air Canada Express fly turboprops out of it to eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, which is why the aircraft on the apron are propeller-driven while the skyline behind them is not.
The gap between the island and the mainland is the shipping channel, and it is 121 metres wide. Crossing it is the part that makes this airport unlike any other: either the pedestrian tunnel that opened on 30 July 2015, 240 metres of it with moving walkways and lifts at both ends, or the ferry, which covers the same water in about 90 seconds and runs every fifteen minutes from 5:15am to midnight. Both are free on foot. The ferry has been called the Marilyn Bell I since 2010, after the sixteen-year-old who swam across Lake Ontario in 1954, and it was converted to run on batteries rather than diesel.
A 45-minute harbour cruise from Harbourfront Centre’s west pier
Harbourfront Centre occupies the waterfront around 235 Queens Quay West, and the boats leave from the west pier in front of it, out through the inner harbour and around the islands with commentary the whole way.
Forty-five minutes on the water is the right length for this kind of gap: long enough to see the skyline from the angle it was designed to be seen from, short enough that it does not put the return leg at risk. Seats on the harbour and islands cruise are sold through a tours and activities platform, and booking ahead is worth it in summer, when the afternoon departures fill. Inside the Harbourfront Centre buildings, the Power Plant at 231 Queens Quay West is a contemporary art gallery in a 1920s power station that stopped charging admission in 2012 and has stayed free since.
Bach’s first cello suite planted as a garden on Queens Quay
Number 479 Queens Quay West is three acres of park laid out as a reading of a piece of music. Yo-Yo Ma and the landscape designer Julie Moir Messervy built the Toronto Music Garden around Bach’s Suite No. 1 for unaccompanied cello, one section per movement: a curved riverscape for the prelude, a wandering grove for the allemande, a spiral through wildflowers for the courante, formal beds for the menuett, and a set of oversized grass steps for the gigue at the end.
It is open dawn to dusk, every day, for nothing. From late June to mid-September there are free concerts in it, Thursdays at 7pm and Sundays at 4pm, which is worth knowing if the flight is an evening one in summer: the Thursday slot lands squarely in the hours most people here are killing. Outside those months the garden is simply quiet, which on this stretch of waterfront is the rarer thing.
The yellow umbrellas on the sand at HTO Park
HTO Park runs along the water at 339 Queens Quay West, 4.3 acres of it opened in 2007 on what had been Maple Leaf Quay and the Peter Street Slip. The eastern half is sand, with rows of outsized yellow umbrellas over painted wooden chairs, and the designers took the umbrellas from Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte rather than from any real beach.
Nobody swims here; the water off this stretch is harbour rather than beach, and the sand is there to sit on. That is the point of it on a layover. Getting to any of this from the island, though, is where the time goes: the tunnel or the ferry, then the walk or the streetcar, and a wheeled bag turns each of those two transfers into a queue rather than a step.
The tunnel and the shuttle bus run back to the island
The mainland end of the crossing is a glass pavilion at the foot of Bathurst Street on Eireann Quay, and both the tunnel and the ferry start from it. A free shuttle bus links it to York and Front Streets downtown, and a streetcar stops at Bathurst and Queens Quay, one block north of the dock. Twenty minutes on foot along Queens Quay covers the same ground, flat the whole way.
Build in fifteen minutes at the island end for the tunnel walk and the security line, and remember the ferry stops at midnight while the tunnel does not. If your onward flight is out of Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) rather than this airport, that is a different trip entirely, roughly an hour across the city by streetcar and train; the central Toronto itinerary covers what sits between the two.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do during a layover near Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (YTZ) in Toronto?
Everything worth doing here runs east along Queens Quay from the ferry dock, and three to five hours covers it comfortably. The Music Garden is a few minutes from the mainland side and costs nothing, HTO Park's sand and yellow umbrellas are a little further along, and the contemporary art gallery at Harbourfront Centre has been free year round since 2012. A 45-minute harbour cruise is the one thing here worth booking in advance, and the one to drop if the gap is tight.
How do you get off the island at Billy Bishop?
Two ways, both free on foot and both short. The pedestrian tunnel under the shipping channel opened on 30 July 2015, runs 240 metres with moving walkways along it and lifts at each end, and is open whenever the airport is. The ferry covers the same gap on the surface, 121 metres in about 90 seconds, every fifteen minutes from 5:15am to midnight. The tunnel is the reliable one; the ferry is the one people take for the novelty of a crossing that short.
How do you get from Billy Bishop to downtown Toronto?
The mainland pavilion is at the foot of Bathurst Street on Eireann Quay, and from there a free shuttle bus runs to York Street and Front Street, at the edge of the rail station block. A streetcar stops at Bathurst and Queens Quay, one block north of the ferry dock, and runs east along the waterfront. On foot, the walk east along Queens Quay to Harbourfront Centre takes about twenty minutes and is flat the entire way.
What is free on the Toronto waterfront near Billy Bishop?
More than you would expect on this stretch. The Toronto Music Garden at 479 Queens Quay West is open dawn to dusk with no admission, and it runs free concerts on Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons from late June to mid-September. HTO Park at 339 Queens Quay West costs nothing and keeps its chairs and umbrellas out through the warm months. The Power Plant gallery at 231 Queens Quay West dropped admission charges entirely in 2012 and has stayed free since.