5 ms·
Perhaps governments might be considering the implications for more people than just the airlines and the airport owners? Like, for example, all the people who w
by joosters 9y ago
Perhaps governments might be considering the implications for more people than just the airlines and the airport owners? Like, for example, all the people who would lose their homes in the airport expansions or have their lives ruined by the increased airplane noise and pollution? But oh no, it's just them stupid lazy governments, of course.
- avar 9y agoLives aren't ruined by airport noise. The housing price around major airports is lower than it otherwise would be, but still higher than housing even further away from the city requiring a longer commute.
- skgoa 9y agoFrom personal experience I know that hearing planes take off every couple of minutes while you are having a BBQ doesn't ruin your day either. I know quite a number of people, including close family members, who voluntarily moved close to the airport for financial reasons. It's not for everyone, especially when night starts and landings are allowed (hich luckily isn't the case at most airports in Germany), but many people really aren't affected negatively. Also, modern windows etc. can eliminate the noise almost entirely when you are inside. Airports often even pay for these upgrades.
- mcv 9y agoLife quality is about more than housing prices.
- avar 9y agoOf course, but the context here is GPs claim that people will have "their lives ruined" by the presence of an airport. That's easily shown to be hyperbolic nonsense if you look at housing prices in the "worst" (some people like it) possible places near runways at busy international airports. There's a drop for sure, but it's marginal. Now compare that marginal drop to the overall positive impact on the local economy from more tourism, better access to travel from people who live within hours driving distance of the city etc., and it becomes easy to make the case that the lack of airport expansion is more a case of NIMBY-ism than some optimization for the common good.
- mcv 9y agoBut there's more to happiness than housing prices. It could be the house they grew up in, invested a lot of personal work in to improve it, their friends and family may live in the vicinity, but they get stressed out or can't sleep because of the noise of aircraft taking off right over their house. If the airport is expanding, that runway might not have been there when they bought the house. The tourism and extra revenue for other people does not help the people who suffer from the daily noise. The slight drop in house value isn't the problem, but the fact that they may have to move at all. If your house has to be torn down to make place for a new runway, you hopefully get paid well over the market value for your house. But if your house can stay, but is suddenly right next to a runway, you may wish they'd bought your house, but airports usually don't reimburse those people the same way. There's a good reason why airports have noise regulations. Unfortunately, it turns out those rules can be far too flexible. Around Schiphol, it turns out the measured noise doesn't count. They calculate how much noise you get, and if your experience is different, tough luck.
- avar 9y agoWe can both come up with sob stories all day. So that old couple sells their house, then what about the young father entering the job market who could afford a cheaper house closer to Amsterdam to commute into work and see his kid more often? The kid loves airplanes and one of their favorite pastimes is watching them come in for landing. Of course people who don't yet get any benefits from the airport construction aren't vocal about increased investment in its infrastructure, even though collectively they'll be the beneficiaries. This is a classic example of concentrated benefits and diffuse costs, with the concentrated benefit being the NIMBYs who live near the airport and benefit from the status quo, and the greater diffuse cost being what society at large has to lose from it not being built out. I'm not familiar with how airport noise regulations work in The Netherlands, but the situation you're describing with Schiphol doesn't sound unreasonable at all. Unlike a club next door the amount of noise from an airport should be easily predicted based on available data, we know where the planes were at at any given time, and can construct very accurate models of what the noise at any given point on the ground will be. Why would the council need to show up to do noise measurements only to find that yes, the noise is pretty much exactly the same as what your neighbor next door is experiencing? If the noise is being systematically underestimated that's another matter, which the courts could presumably sort out, but that they're relying on estimations seems like good policy to me.
- Aaargh20318 9y ago> The housing price around major airports is lower than it otherwise would be It causes problems way further out than that. For example the expansion of Schiphol and now Lelystad airport will cause noise problems for people who live over 100 miles from the airport.
- dmitrygr 9y ago100 miles out, planes are descending out of flight level 300 or so. If you can hear a plane at 30,000 feet, I'm impressed, but that is not the norm.
- Aaargh20318 9y agoDue to how crowded the airspace is here they have to descent very low to avoid other traffic. Same goes for the holding pattern. I just looked it up and the new routes are between 5000 and 6000 feet.
- dmitrygr 9y agoI'm sorry, but you are entirely wrong if you think that airplanes are going to be at 5000 or 6000 feet 100 miles away from their destination. That's not even remotely how modern jet airliners operate. Source: am pilot
- Aaargh20318 9y agoThis has been a really hot topic in my country, lots of debates, protests, accusations flying back and forth over wether noise impact studies were done correctly or not. It's been on the news for months. Basically, Schiphol is getting too crowded so they are opening a second location (actually, it already exist but it's a small airport now which mainly services small private planes) in Lelystad. As the new location is relatively close to Schiphol (about 32 miles) the new inbound routes and holding patterns have to be below the existing routes for Schiphol because there simply is no other place for them to go. Plenty of information about it available online but most of it's in Dutch. This report has a couple of maps and charts which may be useful for you: http://hoogoverijssel.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/20170711-Stadshagen-geluidshinder-Leon-Adegeest.pdf http://hoogoverijssel.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/20170711... Edit: and some more info: http://www.pbbo.info/documenten/Luchtruim%20Lelystad%20ACS.pdf http://www.pbbo.info/documenten/Luchtruim%20Lelystad%20ACS.p...
- gaius 9y agohave their lives ruined by the increased airplane noise and pollution Oh please. Heathrow has been an airfield since the 1930s. There is no one living near there who didn’t know that, and chose to live there anyway.
- dingaling 9y ago> Heathrow has been an airfield since the 1930s. A private airfield, owned by Richard Fairey for his use and that of his owner-pilot friends in the Royal Aeronautical Society, who had their annual picnic there. The London hub airport in that era, and into the late 1940s, was Croydon.
- Symbiote 9y agoNot everyone can afford to choose a better place to live, but they still deserve reasonable things like quiet at night, clean air and so on.
- rlanday 9y agoHomes that are cheap because there’s an airport nearby probably wouldn’t be so cheap if there weren’t an airport nearby.
- Symbiote 9y agoIf house prices are all that matter, then accept that increasing the number of flights at Heathrow will reduce the value. Should the owners be compensated? It's about 3 million people.
- dmitrygr 9y agoSo what you are saying is that it is reasonable to come to a place you know is currently used for X and demand it change for you, I including stopping doing X?
- Symbiote 9y agoThe argument in London is not to close Heathrow, but to stop expanding it. But in any case, I think it's completely reasonable to demand that toxic fumes are no longer noisily spread over ones house, workplace or school.