The Pickering Airport Lands were expropriated in 1972 by the Government of Canada with the intention of building a second international airport to serve the city of Toronto, its metropolitan area, and the surrounding region known as the Golden Horseshoe in Ontario, Canada. The airport was planned to be set in the city of Pickering, Ontario, about east of Toronto Pearson International Airport. As of December 2019 no operator had been selected. In 2004, the estimated cost of building the airport was reported to be approximately $2 billion, and it was anticipated that, by 2032, it would be handling up to 11.9 million passengers annually. The plans for the airport were developed during the late 1960s and early 1970s. A large tract of land in Pickering, Uxbridge, and Markham townships was expropriated for the airport in 1972–1973. Opposition to the project was widespread. Preliminary airport construction activity was halted in 1975 when the provincial partner in the enterprise, the Government of Ontario, declared it would not build the roads or sewers needed to service the site. In 2010, the GTAA completed a Pickering Airport "Needs Assessment Study" commissioned by the federal government. The study's report recommended that the federal government retain the Pickering lands, "thereby preserving the option of building an airport, if and when required". The Canadian Owners and Pilots Association, an association of private plane owners and pilots, took exception to the methodology and conclusions of the study, arguing that "the process to implement a new airport at Pickering should be well underway right now". Transport Action Ontario, in its own response to the study report, questioned some of the study's claims and suggested that, in lieu of building a new airport, "higher-speed, electrified rail" would be a "far superior alternative" for much of the short-haul traffic currently handled by Pearson Airport. In an announcement in June 2013, the federal government reaffirmed its intention to hold land on the site for a future airport, stating that the needs assessment study's conclusion was that the airport would be needed within the 2027–2037 time-frame. By July 2015, the federal government had permanently protected more than half of the farmland and natural habitat on the site by adding it to the Rouge National Urban Park. It announced its intention to use the remainder of the site for economic development, including a potential future airport. In 2016 Transport Canada released the Polonsky