Airplane Noise

[kennygster.livejournal.com]

It's been awhile since someone posted on the frequent airplane noise over Davis Square (it acted as my wakeup call today).  I know the mayor and our alderman are pushing back against the FAA/Logan Airport but not much has changed yet.  They are encouraging residents to file complaints with the FAA. 

It literally only takes 15-20 seconds to file an e-mail complaint with the FAA.  I'd really encourage you to save the following link as a favorite and send off a complaint a few times (or more) each month when you hear a lot of airplane noise (the FAA counts # of callers and complaints per caller on a monthly basis).  

http://www.massport.com/logan/airpo_noise_form.aspx

or call 617-561-3333 or Call 311 because the city of Somerville keep stats too.  

Here's what Tom Champion says the city of Somerville is doing about the increase in airplane noise:
http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/1169619.html?thread=11923923#t11923923

 

Comments

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

This has been discussed extensively before, just FYI.

[ron_newman]

But last time was about six months ago.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I'm just remembering b0st0n a few days back.

To be honest I almost never hear airplanes where I live and I can't remember the last time I heard an airplane directly over the Square.

[ron_newman]

I never hear them either. I suspect the noise varies within a few blocks, and may also depend on altitude and the quality of windows and insulation in your building.

[rosiewoodboat.livejournal.com]

If you were in the flight path, you'd hear them. You'd also have your chandeliers rattle, as I do. The flight path is very consistent, and if you are even a few streets away, you'd be unlikely to notice.

Call 311 - Really

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

Despite our requests, the FAA has refused to meet with city officials outside the framework of their long-term community advisory process -- in other words, "Don't bother us."

There are two follow-up channels, and we will try both of them if we need to. The first is political, i.e., trying to get our congressional rep and senators to put pressure on the FAA to acknowledge the undeniable increase in noise over Somerville (and Arlington, Cambridge, Chelsea and Medford) -- and to demand that they address it. Needless to say, if Democrats increase their congressional majorities after the 2008 election and there's a Democrat in the White House, this channel will have a better chance of yielding a successful outcome.

The second channel would be legal, and I won't say much about it -- for now.

In the meantime, PLEASE call in noise complaints to 311. They keep the stats, and the stats are a helpful tool. Check the time, the duration, altitude, aircraft type if you can tell it. You don't have to call at exactly the moment you hear the noise incident -- the next day or even two days later is fine as along as you've jotted down (or can clearly recall) the key facts.

These complaints reinforce our standing to demand immediate attention from the FAA and you will be aiding the cause by making them.

Re: Call 311 - Really

[veek.livejournal.com]

Tom, thanks – this is very informative and important. Perhaps it deserves its own post, properly tagged so people will easily find it?

Re: Call 311 - Really

[ron_newman]

All the posts on this subject are tagged as "noise".

Re: Call 311 - Really

[veek.livejournal.com]

Yes, but from looking at the "noise" posts it's not obvious which one of them contains Tom's comment with this pragmatic summary.

Re: Call 311 - Really

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

Thanks Tom. I'm again really sad and frustrated that Medford, where I live, isn't doing such a good job of community awareness and communications about such topics. I've contacted Massport twice about airplane noise over my house, which has been darn near constant for several months and persists over the summer when they claim it doesn't exist in this area. They don't even include Medford in the stats they show. But if you keep up the pressure for Somerville, it will benefit me where I live (just over the line in Medford), too!

Re: Call 311 - Really

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Thanks Tom. I'm not bothered by the plane noise enough to get up in arms, but I think you're absolutely right that calling in noise complaints is worthwhile anyway, any time you're particularly bothered by it -- some people complaining "the planes are really disruptive!" and others answering "no they aren't, stop whining" is all thoroughly subjective, aggravating to both sides and unlikely to lead to anything being done. Calling in noise complaints (as the OP suggests), however, will generate actual statistics that can be used in actual decision-making.

I also agree this is a worthwhile point that is likely to get buried beneath other comments in the thread and not seen by many people. Maybe the OP could add an "edit" with a link down to Tom's comment?

Re: Call 311 - Really

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

Hey Tom,

What is somerville looking for from the FAA? Could they change routes easily? Is this noise something new? I definitely have been woken up by it before, but it almost seems like it is for a single runway that is only sometimes used as I only hear it on certain days. Do you have more information about this because I am really curious.

[diatomacearth.livejournal.com]

You know, I was thinking that I never really noticed or minded plane traffic--for the most part, I simply filter out it out, the way I filter out train noises--and while I was describing this to a friend, I counted six planes flying overhead, three of which were in view of my window.

Now I can't stop noticing them, dammit!

I don't know whether I can ignore them because they're far enough away from my apartment not to be as obnoxiously loud and intrusive as they must be to some people, or because I grew up close to both a major city airport and a military air base, and the sound and sight of planes overhead was not only everyday, but something I actually associate with playing outside as a child. Maybe both?

[alphacygni]

I've got a similar childhood association with helicopters overhead, because of growing up next to a major tourist attraction that had helicopter tours going constantly. Every time I hear a traffic copter, I can close my eyes and imagine that it's a warm summer day and I'm playing outside. Mental associations are wacky things.

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

I don't hear airplane noise so much in the winter, even though I can see the planes overhead every few minutes. But once I open the windows in the spring, then there are days when it is VERY loud, and the planes make it hard to go to sleep at night, or they wake you up at six in the morning. But other days it isn't so bad.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

I remember sitting outside the VFW on a summer evening with out nearly 100 year old janitor and watching jet trails as the sun set, listening to him tell me stories about growing up in Cambridge in the early 1900's.

But I have yet to actually hear a plane in the square.

When I lived in W. Medford, I'd occasionally hear the fighter jets fly over for Red Sox games - and run outside as they were rattling my windows. The overall effect was to make me pine for my happiest times in the AF, stationed at Eglin AFB in FL.

But really, I'm in the square all of the time and have never heard planes to the point where I'd notice it or it became obtrusive. Perhaps it's because this affects so few people in a certain part of the flight path that nothing will really come of it?

And frankly, Logan and the FAA are probably more interested in complaints from Chelsea, Winthrop Beach and other communities in the direct path of most of their flights than they are from a handful of people in Somerville.

[witzwurst.livejournal.com]

Complaints from people in other communities are one of the reasons they're flying over our area more.

I'm not particularly bothered by the noise, but it's loud enough that I was able to ID a particular type of plane by its engine sound this evening.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

So in other words, it's a NIMBY bullshit cycle. Spectacular.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

NIMBY bullshit, in Davis??

Surely you're imagining things.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

Really? Here I thought that it was because they routinely change flight paths based on destination and weather and that the increase in air traffic in general was due to an overall increase in flights world wide.

I had no idea there was such a conspiracy going on!

[avjudge]

For years (I lived on Winter Hill in the 80s, and bought a house just below it 2 years ago) planes flew over Somerville for a few hours after storms blew through, on the strong NW winds that bring clearing. But as I learned sailing in Mass. Bay, NW winds are flukey - you can't count on them to keep blowing strong enough to move you for any length of time. When the wind velocity dropped, Logan went back to using other runways, and take-offs over Somerville would go away until the next storm that had high winds behind it.

Then Logan built a new runway paralleling the one that sends flights over us - which had been opposed by Chelsea (and Somerville, I now find) because it would increase traffic in this direction. No, no, Logan said, we won't change where planes go, this will just let us be more efficient.

Logan got its new runway. And liked the new system so much, it started using the paralleling 33L as much as it could. And suddenly we began getting flights for days on end, after EVERY storm, instead of a few hours just after the strong storms.

For months, Logan spokesman claimed "unusually strong northwest winds."

Yeah, right. The reports in response to my noise complaints - when planes were practically skimming my roof - listed the wind as "CALM."

(Also see http://tinyurl.com/2empmz from last November - and searching for that, I found lots of Globe articles on the decade-long fight against the new runway. Logan claimed throughout that it wouldn't make a real difference in traffic. From 2004 ( http://tinyurl.com/26vfgy ), "The new 5,000-foot runway, which would be the airport's sixth, is designed to reduce delays at New England's busiest airport and will be used only when winds out of the northwest or southeast are blowing at 10 knots or greater, Massport officials insist." HA!)

Anne

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

Actually there's a pretty small number of fixed "approaches" close to the airport.

I never did get around to looking up to see if there's any new ones going over Somerville.

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

I think it depends where you are. In Ball Square the houses shake. Maybe it is so nosiy in Davis you just don't notice anyway.

done

[303-5.livejournal.com]

I just left a complaint with both the FAA and 311 (via email). It's been one after another and very loud just now.

I know Rep. Michael Capuano has tried to address this issue with the FAA, though he indicated the FAA administration was completely dismissive and that the FAA denied that many complaints had been made--this was perhaps a few months ago.

[kennygster.livejournal.com]

Just as an update, nine residents from Chelsea, Medford, East Boston, and Charlestown filed a lawsuit against the FAA earlier this month. The city of Somerville is considering joining the lawsuit.