Boston’s Logan Airport is receiving opposition over a planned 9,300 foot taxiway between two parallel runways. If such a taxiway is approved, construction could begin next year with an estimated completion in 2009. Over the past year and a half, Logan Airport has experienced several circumstances in which planes have come to close to each other. These are referred to as runway incursions.
While air-traffic control has reduced these incidents since the most public in June 2005, a new centerfield taxiway, which planes would use going to and from runways, would reduce these problems. Massport’s chief executive commented that it would cut ground delays by 10,000 hours a year, or 22 percent.
The Boston Globe reports that East Boston is opposing this development because it would push noise and pollution closer to Court Road in Winthrop and Orient Heights. Even with the assurance that Logan will never go beyond 120 arrivals and departures per hour, even with the new taxiway, the opposition insists it enhances the capacity of Logan Airport and thus will lead to more traffic. The pilots involved insist that it will reduce delays and exhaust by having less planes on the ground waiting.