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Legal Sea Foods, music venue to city and state planners: Your heliport location is bad and you should feel bad
By adamg on Wed, 02/01/2017 - 12:52pm
The Boston Business Journal reports that both Legal Sea Foods and Live Nation, which operates the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion, are loudly protesting a cit/state proposal to stick the GE Memorial Heliport on a pier behind the pavilion. They cite noise, which they say would be so severe it would likely drive the pavilion out of business.
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Comments
The proposal for the heliport
The proposal for the heliport includes not allowing takeoffs/landings on nights of concerts (about 49 a year), so this seems to be a bit of hyperbole on the part of Don Law as they've assuaged his concerns. If there needs to be a heliport in South Boston, this should be the spot as it goes along existing helicopter flights and would cause the least amount of neighborhood disruption.
However, I can see valid concerns about funding this project with public money. I do think a private water shuttle from the Logan helipad should be sufficient for GE, along with lowering the costs for use (currently $300 a flight).
Alternatively, why not get this on a high-rise roof somewhere along Fort Point Channel where noise concerns will be lessened? Perhaps atop the So. Station tower that's been proposed. And provide a public pedestrian bridge over Fort Point Channel near the new HQ that would be open to all and provide another connection between So Boston and downtown.
Kind of funny that the Blue
Kind of funny that the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion would even think to complain about anyone else's noise!
Curious
Who does it actually bother? And anyone living in condos over there who moved in knowing there was a pre-existing amphitheater gets 0 sympathy.
Why can't this be built onto
Why can't this be built onto the Convention Center? Aren't they trying to add more transportation to this location (the diesel trains proposed for the Indigo Line)?
Funny You Say That
The Convention Center site used to be a helicopter landing pad in the 90's.
It would require fixed-route
It would require fixed-route helicopters (ie, not news copters or law enforcement) going over more land than anyone wants, disrupting more hotels/apartments/condos than the current proposal.
Current helicopter paths are over water: https://twitter.com/FortPointer?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7...
I've suggested eliminating a bike lane on Northern Ave to
facilitate the Helipad and I've yet to receive street plans from the City Council stenographer so the whole damn thing is in limbo.
That's fine
The bike lane there is just valet parking spaces anyway. Any sensible biker is just taking the lane the whole way.
How often?
The most important - and MISSING - piece of data is, "How often will choppers be landing and when?"
Is it 2 a day or is it hourly (or more?) Can they get a restriction to limit landings to certain hours? And as much as I respect Don Law, come on, this is not going to put Harborlights out of business.
MassDOT expects 12-16 copters
MassDOT expects 12-16 copters daily from 6 am till 10 pm (so 24-32 takeoffs/landings combined)
I don't think they are counting my helicopter the anaylsis.
Not sure about the rest of you.
Huh??
Does that seem really high to anyone else? I don't care if it's there (though I don't want to pay for it), but who are these people that need to constantly helicopter in and out of the building??
Seems high
Maybe every GE employee-of-the-month gets a chopper and can keep it forever.
Don Law
Don Law and his music venue are anachronisms that have no place on the Boston waterfront. Th Massachusetts Port Authority can certainly come up with a better use for this site that will provide full time permanent jobs for the citizens of the Commonwealth.
Go Ahead Jobs Creator
Invent your widget, lease the land, build the building, employ dozens, and save the world.
Or how about letting me enjoy the harbor and the other infrastructure that we paid for with something other than another fish processing terminal, lawyer's office, or a Tai-Pan's condo?
There is lots, lots, lots of land available along the waterfront, including the Subaru Pier, which just kind of sits there. Just sits there whilst proposals are bandied about and nothing happens.
The concerts provide patrons for the restaurants, lots of OT for the Staties, an incredible amount of tax revenue from beer sales ($14 for a Notch!?!), and an overall nice place for a concert.
Harborlights / BOA Pavilion / BHB Pavilion, or whatever it is now called has been on the waterfront for 30 years. They were one of the leaders in embracing the waterfront when it still smelt and looked, like doodoo.
Lighten up, it is my harbor and waterfront too. If you want "full time jobs for the citizens of the Commonwealth" why put what you can put in an industrial park in Shir-tucky or Randolph here?
That's exactly what we should be asking
Don Law, Legal Seafoods, and the other people opposing the heliport location. Where do YOU propose we put it? And if you can't, or unwilling to, answer that question, then perhaps you shouldn't be engaging in this discussion.
The question we should be asking
is why do we need it in the first place? I'd understand if we lived in a city where the airport was 20 miles out of town, but the proposed location is half a mile (as the crow flies) from the airport. Instead of wasting money on building a helipad, the city should work with Mass Port to make the one at Logan a viable option.
The answer to your question
GE is keeping their fleet of private jets/helicopters out at Hanscom not Logan. Same reasons that private jets in NYC dont go to JFK, LaGuardia or Newark and go to Teterboro instead. It is more suited to smaller private planes. That is why they wanted a helipad in the city so when the execs land out at Hanscom they arent sitting in traffic on Route 2.
Why can't they fly from Logan to Hanscom?
.
As someone stated
Same reason NYC companies don't park their fleets at LGA, it's insanely expensive.
The fleet is at Hanscom..
So why can't they get off their jet at Hanscom and have the helicopter drop them off at Logan as opposed to dropping them off a half mile from Logan? If I recall correctly, GE was looking to park their fleet at Logan when they announced the move, and were planning on moving the planes there if / when space opened up.
Logan to Hanscom?
Anyone remember Save Our Heritage!!!!!!!!!
A few years ago FedEx proposed putting some flights into Hanscom to relieve stress at Logan.
The horsey / blueblood crowd in Bedford, Lexington, Concord, and Lincoln went nuts. They said more flights into Hanscom (the part that you and me own) would disrupt the sacred battle sites of the area.
Fair point, but then again more flights into Logan would be disrupting to the more bloodier battle sites of Bunker Hill along with areas that were part of the Battle of Chelsea Creek and the placing of cannons on Dorchester Heights.
Therefore - Rich towns with Revolutionary War Battle Sites - Save Our Heritage.
Not as rich areas with Revolutionary War Battle Sites - Shut up before I give your landscaping job to a more worthy Papist.
That's why there will be no Hanscom to Logan flights.
I'm not sure you know what you're talking about
The GE jets will be flying in and out of Hanscom regardless. The issue is whether the helicopter will drop them off / pick them up at Logan, where a helipad already exists, or just across the harbor where one will be built.
Also the GE corporate jets and FedEx cargo planes would certainly have different impacts on the surrounding neighborhoods.
Awesome! Best post of 2017
Awesome! Best post of 2017 thus far!
What's a papist?
What's a papist?
I say...
let them sit.
How understanding.
It seems to me that the Pavilion as well as the restaurants were there before the heliport was purposed. So the onus is not on the Pavilion and/or restaurant owners.
What's wrong
with an amphitheater down there? -Anyone who lives in or near the city and has dealt with the nightmare that is the Xfinity Center in Mansfield.
Seriously though, it brings more business to the bars and restaurants down there, creates a fair number of jobs for a good chunk of the year, and makes a wide range of live music accessible to a lot of people.
Convenient access to
Convenient access to waterfront spaces is something that we should not push aside so lightly. It is a nice venue that I almost never get to but lots of other people clearly do. Everything does not have to be 30 story glass and concrete towers.
We need a Dyson helicopter
We need a Dyson helicopter that goes Whoosh!!!
GE
Why can't the pad just be on GE's roof?
but
But that would annoy GE execs below the pad.. we can't have that can we? Let's annoy everyone else instead of the people who are actually going to use it.
Actually
It would annoy all of GE's neighbors in Ft. Point.
Boston
Boston is a tiny, dense city. Where can it be put where it wouldn't annoy some neighboring tenants?
(The correct answer: One of the Harbor Islands)
Or
Right where they're recommending they put it. How many people live adjacent to that spot, only those who live in Park Lane Seaport.
Dear Legal Sea Foods: Your advertising is bad and you
should feel bad. And it annoys people in a lot more neighborhoods than just the damnable Seaport.
(Also, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion is awesome, but I still can't stop calling it Harborlights.)
#Harborlights4eva
#Harborlights4eva
Helicopters
Helicopters do not fly the published Helicopter Routes.
Simply look at all the helicopters over head, over homes, over neighborhoods.
Not over the nearby waterways, highways, railroad tracks--the published routes..
One published route is over the center of the Charles River--no one ever follows it.
The published routes, referred to in responses, are only "recommended".
They are bogus window dressing, part of the Helicopter Association Fly Neighborly Program--to point to and claim they are considerate and nothing more is needed.
Helicopter pilots will tell you loudly the routes are only recommended, they don't have to fly there, the air is free for them--and you can't do anything about it.
The standard helicopter operators have signed Letters of Agreement to fly the published routes in the Logan controlled airspace--and they don't, with no FAA enforcement.
Low, hovering and circling helicopters are more intrusive than airplanes.
They violate Minimum Safe Altitudes--"an altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface."
Media, traffic, and security helicopters are intrusively overhead for too many hours on too many days. And growing.
And, it's not always a medical emergency--not both arriving and departing and at all hours.
Complaints are ignored by all.
The operators all welcome a new refueling point in Boston to be able to stay overhead in Boston more hours.
And, trying to limit to only "commercial" not including tour operators will be "discriminatory". Tour operators are commercial.
"That would be discriminatory." is the FAA standard excuse for free for all their brethren.
And, the powerful Helicopter Association International will lobby and litigate their way. With most of Congress very receptive.
Locating on the water can create more noise impact, as the noise radiates from the hard, non-absorbing and non-compressing water surface.
Locating so near the Logan arrival and departure routes is wrong. Inherently decreasing Safety and Efficiency. Much more than many noise abatement proposals, which have been summarily rejected for decreasing Efficiency and Safety.
Logan lowering the landing fee (<$5/1,000 lb for airplanes) and (lead) fuel rates makes much more sense than building and operating a new facility within sight across the water. (Squantum Naval Airbase in Quincy was closed to improve Logan Airport safety.)
Why do we need a Massachusetts Aeronautics Comission—to manage this boondoggle?
In addition to improved water shuttle, let GE have their own boat if other alternatives, including tunnel and silver line, are not enough.
Let Fidelity manage it with their headquarters now at Fort Point Channel.
Stop overwhelming those who live here. Refocus on living in the City rather just visiting the City.
same
same