Noise Monitor Coming To Maspeth/M.V.
Looking to gauge airplane noise levels and their impact on the community, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will soon install a monitor system in the Maspeth/Middle Village area.
As announced by Rep. Grace Meng, the Port Authority is expected to install the device sometime in January. The agency-which operates New York City’s three major airports: LaGuardia, John F. Kennedy and Newark Liberty-is currently in the process of evaluating potential locations for the monitor.
Recently, Meng noted, the Port Authority installed a portable noise monitor on a Flushing building to record data there.
“These additional noise monitors are great news in our continued fight against the blistering airplane noise that continues to ruin the quality of life throughout our borough,” Meng said in a statement last Friday, Dec. 5. “The devices will allow officials to get precise and accurate readings on how levels of aircraft noise affect our neighborhoods, and hopefully this critical information will help lead to much needed relief.”
According to Meng’s office, the airplane noise monitor-once activated in the Maspeth/Middle Village area-will record airplane noise data, such as decibel levels, over a one-year period. The Port Authority will then share the data with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which charts flight patterns, and a community roundtable established to address quality-of-life problems related to low-flying airplanes across Queens.
For years, as previously reported in this newspaper, residents in Maspeth, Middle Village and other Queens communities complained of flight pattern changes that the FAA imposed at LaGuardia Airport which caused low-flying planes to travel over their neighborhoods. In some periods, the jets reportedly rumble over the area every 45 seconds, exposing residents to high levels of noise and air pollution in the process.
The roundtable aims to formulate solutions to ease the impact on local residents, including remediation methods such as soundproofing or potentially changing flight paths.
