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.

[ron_newman]

Which would explain the disparate reactions to this topic every time it comes up here. (Though I recall the OP once posting that he lived across the street from me....)

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

I've got to wonder how many people this actively effects. It seems like it can be annoying to those directly in the flight path, but it also seems like it's limited to those people and thus it might be pretty difficult to effect change.

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?

[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?

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!

[billharnois.livejournal.com]

I hear it in my house, which is near Ball Sq.

But it's also pretty bad in Davis Square. I was in front of Starbucks this morning and I couldn't hear the person talking in front of me. It's been particularly bad today. I think some people just notice it more than others.

[diatomacearth.livejournal.com]

Once I starting counting flights, I realized there is a huge amount of air traffic around here. It's weird, but I can honestly say I had literally never, not even once, noticed it in the three months since I moved, until today.

Love your icon.

[kennygster.livejournal.com]

I live about a block closer to Davis square from you on the same street. It is surprising that you don't hear them but it seems that a lot of planes cross the square between Elm and Orchard. You're right that it could mean that the noise difference is a result of poor windows/insulation in my building.

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.

[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.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

I've got to question why airplane noise is treated as worse than car noise, stereos blasting, people yammering loudly on their cell-phones, etc.

It's really just a part of urban life.

[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.

[artemii.livejournal.com]

i don't understand why you are consistently so adamant about publicly stating what things you deem appropriate for other people to post or not post here. this is a public community, not your personally moderated community. as others have said before - if you don't find anything interesting in the content of a post that a number of other people find interesting or useful, all you have to do is skip the post.

alternately, you're welcome to start your own moderated community about the square if you want to dictate what is appropriate for others to post; i imagine there are others out there who would prefer a heavily moderated community and would join one that you began.

[shana-lyons.livejournal.com]

If you do live under the flight path, which we seem to, it can be quite loud and quite persistent. We have brand new windows and it's still very obvious when a plane is flying overhead. There are Saturday and Sunday mornings when I feel like maybe I live in London during the Blitzkrieg. It sounds like we're being dive bombed. It starts at 5:50 AM some days.

Honestly, I don't mind this thread coming up now and then. Frankly, it comes up alot less frequently than the planes fly over and it's a great reminder that we can help the city do something about the noise by reporting it to the FAA.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Because it can be tiresome to read the same post on the same issue, over and over again with no new content or contribution to the community, that's why. Chatting on the Internet is all well and good but it's not going to actually achieve anything on this, or pretty much any other, issue. I'd much rather people actually try to achieve what they want rather than post on here, even if it's something I don't agree with.

I have precisely zero issue with the way davis_square is moderated, just for the record. I actually think it's well-handled and generally does its job. Anything I post on here is simply my personal opinion, nothing more, so, really, I fail to see why you're so offended.

[kennygster.livejournal.com]

Ironically, I was trying to achieve something by posting here. If I can remind enough people to complain, something may actually be done about it. When we moved here, airplane noise was never an issue.

[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.

[zenala.livejournal.com]

I've always lived under flight paths, and even when a plane is directly overhead I barely notice. It's like train noise to me, just part of the background. Idling delivery trucks and late-night drunk people bother me considerably more.