By Maria Becce
For the last three days, and as I write this letter to the editor, it sounds like a ballistic missile is screaming above the homes of the Broadway-Flushing Historic District. I am sure it is much worse in downtown Flushing.
The FAA must help the LGA Committee develop alternative flight patterns that disburse noise, make planes fly higher, and advance the FAA’s CLEEN Program (Continuous Lower Energy Emissions and Noise) in the long term. The FAA must help TRACON (New York Terminal Radio Approach Control) coordinate flight patterns between JFK and LGA. Except for dire emergencies, air traffic controllers must consider every alternative before using any anti-noise mitigation flight pattern such as TNNIS or anything that resembles it.
Any flight pattern that concentrates this level of noise and causes this much destruction must be abolished. It is just wrong to cause this much hardship to our health, property, and the environment. The LGA Committee and NYCAR will keep fighting towards a positive and equitable outcome. The FAA’s overall mandate is one of safety and their record is exemplary, but the FAA will never achieve a successful modernization of the air traffic system at the expense and sacrifice of people living on the ground.
The LGA Committee and NYCAR (New York Community Aviation Roundtable) want to work with the FAA and Port Authority to develop these noise mitigation flight patterns and foster better coordination with TRACON. The traveling public deserves no less, and our lives and homes depend on it. We simply cannot live with this level of excessive airplane noise that never existed before 2012.
Maria Becce
Broadway-Flushing
