The lawsuit

[sonofabish.livejournal.com]

Here is the link to the lawsuit over airplane noise.


I posted it with comments locked out so folks can use this strictly for information purposes. If the mods decide otherwise, they can unlock it or request for me to unlock it and I will do so.


{edit- Ron requested I enable comments- done.}

Comments

[shana-lyons.livejournal.com]

No, you're not the only upset person by far. I get woken up by the planes pretty regularly. On some days, (like yesterday) I feel like Delta is dive bombing my house. But, since arguing over plane noise on the internet is unlikely to solve the problem, I try not to get into internet fights about it. And frankly, this topic always devolves into a fight. I'm amazed that folks who don't have a problem with the noise are so pissed at people who do.

It was particularly bad yesterday ...

[winterhill.livejournal.com]

... over Winter Hill. That and the daylight savings time shift really screwed up things at 6 a.m.

[sonofabish.livejournal.com]

Let me ask you- and I don't mean this to be facetious- if airplane noise is a problem for you, why do you live near an airport?

[ron_newman]

I wouldn't say that Shana lives 'near an airport', any more than I live 'near an airport'. She gets the noise while I don't, yet we live just a few blocks from each other.

Is location the main difference between us, or is it the construction of our living quarters? (I'm in a 1929 brick apartment building; I don't know what Shana's place looks like but I suspect it's an older wood-frame house.)

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

We all live "near the airport" when compared with other cities, particularly San Francisco, Atlanta and Chicago.

[sonofabish.livejournal.com]

The converse can also be held as true, Ron. You do live near an airport, but for whatever reason, the noise is more problematic for her for what can be a whole range of reasons.

Just from my standpoint, when wind conditions dictate that planes take off and head over Somerville, their "loudness" is affected by a number of things including current weather conditions including if it's raining/snowing and relative humidity. In the winter when it is very cold and the sky is clear, sound carries a helluva lot better.

And I also have to mention that where I live, when the conditions are right, I get the noise from the Amtrak/commuter rail yard and can hear the trains being shuffled around- this usually happens between the hours of midnight and 1am.

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

iirc, the FAA at some point shelled out funds to better soundproof homes in areas adversely affected by change in flight paths, and in some cases where paths hadn't changed but the noise was deemed to be unacceptable.

[shana-lyons.livejournal.com]

I'll try to answer this in the same way it was asked. Thank you for asking.

I have to agree with Ron here, I really don't think of myself as living "near the airport". If you had asked me before this discussion came up if I lived near an airport, I would have said no. I recognize that physically Logan is less than 5 miles away, but so is Fenway Park, and I don't think of myself as living near Fenway, either.

Second, I think it's important to note that not all airplane noise is a problem for me. I don't think anyone on here is concerned about sporadic airplane noise. I live in an urban area and I fully expect to hear some noise from airplanes, cars, my neighbor's dog, the kids who live over the fence, etc. What is a problem, as far as I'm concerned, are the days when the airplane noise is non-stop from dawn to bedtime. Yesterday happened to be one of those days. Sometimes, last summer, we had whole weeks of those days.

As for the whole "don't complain" line of thought that seems to be running through these discussions, I think that it's our responsibility as engaged citizens to speak up about things that impact our community's quality of life. I hope that one of the things that you and others who are not impacted take away from these discussions is that other people are impacted. I'm sad that the city had to sue to get Logan to listen to them. My understanding is that they reached out in a non-adversarial manner first and that Massport refused to meet with our mayor and Congressman Capuano. I don't think anyone is trying to say close the airport or stop using the runway or never send planes over Somerville. I know I certainly don't find that reasonable or desirable. I do think it's fair to ask Massport what noise abatement procedures can be enhanced or put into place. I assume smart people who know a lot about planes work for them. I don't think that it's too much to ask to ask Massport to task some of them with finding better ways to co-exist with the surrounding community. I also think it's fair to ask what the environmental impacts are of this new configuration in terms of both noise and air pollution and what can be done to mitigate those. Somerville already bears a disproportionately high portion of the local transportation burden which means disproportionately high levels of airborne pollutants.

That's probably way more of an answer than you wanted. :)

[sonofabish.livejournal.com]

I thank you for the answer and appreciate its length- no need to apologize.

We really do live near an airport. Most other major airports are plunked down in the middle of nowhere. Boston has never had the luxury of space.

And I understand about how there can be stretches for days on end when the flight path brings the jets over our neighborhood. (Hell, there have been a couple of times when I've flown out of Logan and could look down as the plane climbed and see my roommate walking to his car to go to work.) But I know that these flight patterns are largely dictated by safety/wind direction and not by some desire by the FAA to screw over Somerville. In the summer, maybe it means closing my bedroom window and running the fan on my AC all night so the planes don't wake me up in the morning.

And I agree- it's perfectly reasonable to approach Massport about problems. But what we've seen is that a very small but extremely vocal portion of NIMBYs have hijacked the process and won't be happy unless Logan stops all flights over Somerville.

[docorion.livejournal.com]

Because the statements we largely see from them are: "Noise bad! Close airport! Everyone else must stop having airplanes because I am bothered!"

Not in so many words, but that's the gist I generally receive from what is said. No apparent recognition that airports and airplanes are in any way a good. No concept that, in order for them to sleep undisturbed, other people must be woken up instead. No concept of shared benefits and shared cost. It may be that the people who are complaining do, in fact, have such a concept, but they don't communicate the nuances of their understanding very well.

I get that noise is bothersome. I don't, for instance, like being woken up by trash collection at oh-dark-hundred in the morning (especially the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned backup beepers). But I do like not having trash in the streets, so I shut up and deal. Airplane noise can be bothersome; I get trying to abate it to some extent. But reasonable people can differ on what constitutes reasonable efforts at abatement. My sense of the lawsuit is that the FAA's modeling made some poor assumptions, and they have stonewalled city efforts to negotiate. To the extent that it's an attempt to force the FAA to negotiate in good faith, bravo. But to the extent that it's an attempt to send airplanes anywhere except over the homes of the litigants, I cry foul.

[mjperson.livejournal.com]

Well said.