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Perhaps it's just as well Mike Ross is no longer a city councilor
By adamg on Sun, 10/16/2016 - 2:08pm
Can you imagine the outrage if a Boston city councilor told his constituents to shut the hell up about jet noise from Logan?
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Comments
mike ross
offers an interesting perspective that should be considered along with other perspectives
Isn't he now from East Boston
Isn't he now from East Boston, I Lived in Eastie almost 5 decades and I live beneath a flight path, yuppies are buying in Eastie so they can profit later on with their new condos , yuppies who just moved in the neighborhood are not use to the plane noise they are the ones telling us to shut the hell up about Airplane noise and occasional Airplane exhaust fumes blanketing the neighborhood which is causing asthma and lung disease to children and adults at an alarming rate.
The changing demographic of East Boston
As a five decade East Boston resident myself, I can clarify that what the above East Boston poster quaintly refers to as "yuppies" is the recent influx of Millennials/students/hipsters to East Boston. It is one of those vast changes in demographic that periodically happens in East Boston. For 60 years or so East Boston had a primarily Italian-American population (and prior to that an Anglo "Yankee" and Norwegian population). In the 80s that changed rapidly to a majority Latino population, which it has been for about a generation and a half now. And now we have been discovered by the Millennials/students/hipsters who like being a stone's through away from all the city action,and realized that the long standing falsehood that East Boston is "remote" or "inaccessible" was just that. A falsehood. The difference between the previous demographics and the current rapid influx is that the Millennials/students/hipsters are a highly transient bunch and East Boston, for a while at least, is in danger of becoming another Allston.
Above comment- East Boston
Above comment- East Boston is in danger of becoming another Allston... Hold your horses, that's not the case.. In fact, Eastie's rents are now much higher than Allstons
Allston will somewhat always remain cheaper than the rest of Boston.
Yes, Eastie does attract students , Students who can only afford to live in Eastie! What I mean is their parents are dolling up the cash , they probably go to schools like Suffolk or B.C
and they are probably saving some cash by living off campus, parents are already paying for their schooling and they are also paying for their Eastie apartments.
There's been a lot of
There's been a lot of speculators in that neighborhood too, and people being forced to leave so they can build newer apartments in the same place.
A whole 5 decades? Funny
A whole 5 decades? Funny thing - Logan has been there longer than that.
Airport noise good? Student
Airport noise good? Student noise bad?
no more than
4 commuter planes can live in a hangar together
Airport Noise Indicates a Properous Economy
Ross' basic message is that a busy airport indicates a prosperous economy. It's certainly preferable to a quiet airport and a lethargic economy. He's correct.
Of course, everybody would like to have a quiet airport and a prosperous economy. But, the world doesn't work that way.
What's really dumb about the whole airport noise thing
1. Most people use the airport at some point
2. The flight tracks do NOT single out a particular community
3. The flight tracks are determined by the weather
4. The windrose for Logan is extremely well distributed and just about everyone gets some (spread over a 270 degree arc, compared to LAX, where winds spend 90% of the time in a 15 degree arc).
Note: I live right under one of those flight tracks and have noticed the increase in noise when the wind is blowing out of the south. However, I understand why the planes come over my house and what is going on. Would I like the jets to be quieter? Of course. Is that reasonable for safety? No. I think the problem for many people is that the noise distribution is TOO fairly distributed, if only by accident of meteorology.
Very Well Said
SwirlyGrrl's post is 'right on the nose'.
Things that make Logan's noise situation somewhat unique:
1. Boston is a contentious area (e.g., we DEMAND that GE keep that useless, junky wooden structure in the Innovation District, because, well, we're Boston.)
2. "I think the problem for many people is that the noise distribution is TOO fairly distributed". As a result, more people have less (but some) noise, than at LAX, or SFO, of ATL, or ... where the winds are more consistent. That enables more people to complain. In 2015, Massport received noise complaints from folks in 84 communities.
http://www.massport.com/media/377283/2015_Monthly-complaints-for-Website...
Seriously!
So agree with you Swirlygirl, it's literally the wind direction that determines the days flight plans out of an airport, not neighborhoods
You're completely incorrect about point 2 and 4
Rather than continue to compose a separate response, I will point readers to aldos's post below, which illustrates how the NextGen system that the FAA started deploying around the country a few years ago has tightened up the flight corridors for the airport - so affected neighborhoods are seeing/hearing much more traffic now than a few years ago, not less.
Probably the most reasonable solution is to improve the heuristics used by NextGen in order to mitigate this noise pollution. But that will take time and funding, so...
Not wrong about either of them
The windrose for Boston is very well distributed. Google it.
you are the one who is wrong
There is no "singling out" here whatsoever - and that chart below? ONE RUNWAY.
Google the wind patterns for Logan. They are very well distributed.
Maybe read the comments next time? Maybe?
Are you being deliberately misleading, or just obtuse?
I guess if swirls meant "some wind" as opposed to "some airport noise" she would be right on #4 - but that's not how I read the post's intent.
And wrt the chart - the change to more concentrated lanes for the other runways is similar - the globe simply published a single runway's chart for the sake of legibility.
Since NextGen went in a few years ago, more planes are flying over a narrower number of neighborhoods. High concetrations of unwanted product = pollution. The advantage Boston has wrt its wide windrose has been largely negated by this new system.
I would suggest that you might read the comments more closely yourself, but I know that someone who can't be bothered to register an account or take their own advice is probably more interested in throwing shade than actual discussion.
Both you and he miss the point
Nobody is arguing to shut down Logan or reduce the number of flights, at least not down here in the part of the city that is particularly affected by what he's disdaining.
The issue is that, unlike a few years ago, the flight paths into and out of Logan follow very rigid, very precise, very narrow patterns, so that when the winds dictate that, say, flights come in over JP and Roslindale, it is hour after hour after hour of one plane right after another over the same exact houses. This is different from earlier days when the paths weren't so narrowly focused.
Bravo for better systems that enable this sort of thing, I guess, but the result is that when people get flights over their heads now, they get hammered by the noise, while before at least the burden was spread out a bit.
Mike might have learned that at any of the hearings the city council and other elected officials have held, but, of course, he's a busy man, so rarely goes to hearings his clients don't pay him to attend these days.
noise abatement is not a priority
If noise abatement was a priority Logan Airport would be a better neighbor. Having an airport across the harbor from downtown Boston and the financial district makes outbound travel and inbound travel much more convenient.
Like, What?
"If noise abatement was a priority Logan Airport would be a better neighbor."
What, exactly, would you do differently, if you operated Logan?
Of course, what you suggest must comply with federal law and regulations. In broad terms, that means maintaining the current high level of safety and providing service to arriving and departing aircraft.
Fact is, Logan is very well operated. It simply is not possible to operate an airport within the City of Boston in accordance with federal rules and international recommendations and also keep everybody in the area happy.
5am american airlines
Concur with everything you said/but don't forget the 5am flights. That's also changed, and things are real quiet at that time, so the planes are comparatively load.
Sorry, what did the faa say they were going to consider?
Actually, It's Primarily Departures That Have Changed
In reality, it's only the departure routes that have narrowed significantly. They are now using GPS (synonym for GPS in this context) for guidance. Previously, departures just flew a compass heading, which is less accurate.
Most arrivals rely on ILS (Instrument Landing System) or visual guidance. There are authorized GPS/RNAV approaches as well, but virtually all pilots prefer ILS.
This is the point everyone (incl. Ross) seems to miss
I think this graphic from the Globe really drives the point home about the change in flight patterns:
The green lines are flight paths from before the implementation of the new technology (January 2013). The red lines are flight paths from after the implementation of the new technology (January 2015).
It's easy to see that the flight noise used to be spread out a lot more evenly over the neighborhoods, whereas now there are certain corridors that are continuously hammered with the noise. For people living in those corridors, the increased noise isn't a byproduct of the region's economic success-- it's a totally new phenomenon that came about as a result of somebody flipping a switch 3 years ago.
Looks wrong
I'm having a hard time understanding this graphic when it's showing zero flights over City Point / Castle Island, and Winthrop / Nahant. Two areas, by far, impacted the most due to very low operation.
Am I missing something, or is this just busy-body towns trying to make a point of their new burden (and acting like others don't have it even worse).
Seems like this is just for one runway? Which makes it even more laughable IMO!
Yes, it's just for one runway.
The runway that is used for takeoffs varies, mainly based on the wind direction. The Globe used data from one runway as an example to illustrate the problem (showing multiple runways on the same graphic would be too cluttered). You can imagine that when planes take off from other runways, the same issues present themselves in other communities not shown in the above map. Still, the planes can use the same runway for hours to days at a time, so the fact that multiple runways exist doesn't really lessen the magnitude of the problem.
As Swirly said, the traffic
As Swirly said, the traffic to/from Logan is relatively well distributed compared to most other airports (as a result of its crazy-by-modern-standards configuration of its runways laid out because of our winds/coastal location).
As someone else pointed out, however, this graphic does show only traffic off 33L, but since our prevailing wind direction is from the NW, this runway does get a lot of use.
Lastly, it is worth noting that Newton, Weston and to some extent Wellesley are seeing a significant uptick in traffic from this new protocol, too, so the narrative that some are pushing that the traffic is being distributed among towns with lower average income is bunk. (I recognize, of course, that closer in communities, where traffic is at a lower altitude, are bearing a heavier burden, but in most cases, that has not changed). Interestingly, Brighton, Brookinie, Rozzie and Westie seem to have done best w/r/t the reconfig of departures off of 33L.
Like GE, companies can ask for their own Heliport
New York City's economy is in no way suffering because of the travel time to JFK or LaGuardia.
Have you been to booming Shanghai's airport in distant (highspeed train transit) Pudong? It doesn't seem to be slowing economic growth or property values down.
Look Harder
And you will find studies that say exactly that - that NYC is suffering because it takes so long to get to LGA and JFK (partic JFK for international flights), and even more, because the travel time is so unpredictable.
I have
I have landed in Shanghai. I also rode in a 268 mph train to get to downtown. The Shanghai airport is not an especially useful example.
Why the opinion piece?
Why did Mike Ross write this? He admitted the noise doesn't bother him. So he has no dog in this fight. Is he now shilling for airlines?
His analogy of the roar of jets to the roar of the economy sounds like an attempt to divert attention away from the problem: noise pollution. A quality of life problem that does harm to residents just as trash pollution and air pollution are harmful. The particular nature of the harm is different but is harm nevertheless. Mr. Ross claims to not notice the noise anymore. He may have managed to subliminate the noise but the noise is still hitting his eardrums and his brain is still processing the noise. Same for anyone who notices it or not. It's an awful lot of noise that adds a lot of unnecessary stress.
But let's suppose that the noise is an inevitable result of having a nearby airport. Is the noise evenly distributed? No. I've lived i several areas of Boston and only two have been polluted by noise from jets: East Boston and JP.
Is the noise distributed on varying flight paths where the jets fly? No. That is one of the issues. The FAA allows the airlines to use fight paths that save airlines money but puts the cost noise pollution on the millions in every neighborhood that is bombarded with roaring jet noise.
Noise doesn't bother him
He just uses it as an excuse to write bullshit ordinances and other nonsense to harass people working for the biggest industry in the area - the one that hasn't gone bust, has been expanding, and keeps us from being Baltimore.
I'm curious
How does a flight path save an airline money? Where did this "fact" come from?
Less "circling"
The flight paths are intended to increase takeoff and landing frequency.
Less sitting on the tarmac = fuel saved; fewer holding patterns on approach = fuel saved
Look up Nextgen and FAA
Demonstrating that the issue is not limited to Boston is an article from a San Francisco newspaper: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/test-7945704.php
The following is an excerpt from the article:
Many positives for airlines and passengers. But one gigantic negative to anyone living underneath the flight paths and near the airport: terrible noise pollution.
An old lefty phrase applies: This is putting profits before people.
A long time ago Logan adopted
A long time ago Logan adopted PACE program to charge higher fees to smaller planes, to lower fees for bigger planes with more passengers. The FAA shut it down saying it discriminated against small planes (was that the point?) It might be time to bring it back.