Crazy Airport Pitches

The Norwood airport pitch actually got me thinking.

What if what the region "needs" is an airport serving worcester & providence in the same way that Bradley serves Hartford & Springfield?

If it were accessible from Boston it could even pick up some niche / discount traffic from Logan as well, ie passengers who might not currently consider TF green because being on the south side of Providence is just a bit too far (and Providence alone too small a market for a certain density of flights)... but who might be willing to drive from South or West of Boston to North& East of Providence, especially if there were more flights happening because of that bigger addressable market..

RI's North Central State Airport could be a candidate for that role - its about the same size as Norwood, located between Woonsocket & Pawtucket at the intersection of 295 & 146. 25 Miles from Downtown Worcester, 7 miles from the middle of providence, 30 miles from Rt 128 @ Westwood, and 40 miles from Logan.

Or ...there's a good amount of greenfield on the South side of 146 that could get you closer to the midpoint between worcester and providence.

And it'd be harder but something like the worcester / framingham / providence centroid (somewhere on 495 near Mendon / Bellingham) might be ideal in terms of geography, but it'd be a lot hard to find the open space to build a brand new airport...

What you wouldn't have is NE Corridor Access...could close & redevelop PVD and WOR...
 
CSTH said:
The Norwood airport pitch actually got me thinking.

What if what the region "needs" is an airport serving worcester & providence in the same way that Bradley serves Hartford & Springfield?

If it were accessible from Boston it could even pick up some niche / discount traffic from Logan as well, ie passengers who might not currently consider TF green because being on the south side of Providence is just a bit too far (and Providence alone too small a market for a certain density of flights)... but who might be willing to drive from South or West of Boston to North& East of Providence, especially if there were more flights happening because of that bigger addressable market..

RI's North Central State Airport could be a candidate for that role - its about the same size as Norwood, located between Woonsocket & Pawtucket at the intersection of 295 & 146. 25 Miles from Downtown Worcester, 7 miles from the middle of providence, 30 miles from Rt 128 @ Westwood, and 40 miles from Logan.

Or ...there's a good amount of greenfield on the South side of 146 that could get you closer to the midpoint between worcester and providence.

And it'd be harder but something like the worcester / framingham / providence centroid (somewhere on 495 near Mendon / Bellingham) might be ideal in terms of geography, but it'd be a lot hard to find the open space to build a brand new airport...

What you wouldn't have is NE Corridor Access...could close & redevelop PVD and WOR...
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Using the word greenfield, reminded me of something.

I flew in and out of Dulles a while ago and noticed (what I think is new) rail going straight down the middle of the highway. I recall maybe 10-15 years there was some sort of study of a new airport location in Mass, one of those locations studied was north of Gardner. At the time I wondered why Orange Airport was never considered. It's right off Route 2 and boasts what was, and may still be, the 3rd longest runway in New England. The population of the area is quite low, it's been economically challenged since the decline of manufacturing and you have the Quabbin to the south, so nimbys should be mimalized and the locals may well embrace the economic impact. Most of Route 2, at least until Concord has substantial space dividing the lanes and although the location would be like 75 miles from Boston, a highspeed rail line with very limited stops is intriguing to me, at least.

At the end of the day, any place in Eastern Mass is going face severe pushback, really any location east of Worcester will.
 
Yeah this is my favorite aB thread at the moment btw
 
HalcyonEra said:
Most of Route 2, at least until Concord has substantial space dividing the lanes and although the location would be like 75 miles from Boston, a highspeed rail line with very limited stops is intriguing to me, at least.
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But by the time you get to Orange, you've gone through the section of 2 that is two lanes separated by bollards... https://goo.gl/maps/YQzMMZpdWjy
 
dwash59 said:
But by the time you get to Orange, you've gone through the section of 2 that is two lanes separated by bollards... https://goo.gl/maps/YQzMMZpdWjy
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True, but the state owns the property right of way to divide to the airport. After the airport (rt 202/122), the road gets pretty dicey. They didn't do it when they put in the bollards based solely on traffic count at the time.
 
I mean honestly the only solution in regards to the noise problem is to relocate the airport to some place less dense in Massachusetts. I don't know how that's going to work but ummm yeah, it's going to be impossible to make everyone happy.
 
Why can't they just fill in more land to the southeast? (Other than I imagine it'd be very $$$$)
 
jklo said:
Why can't they just fill in more land to the southeast? (Other than I imagine it'd be very $$$$)
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Oh my, there are so many reasons why this won't happen.

1) environmental restrictions. It is probably virtually impossible to expand the landfill in Boston harbor at this point.

2) deep(er) water fill. $$$ and poor drainage in rising sea level conditions. The original fill at Logan was shallow fill around existing islands on the Bird island Flats. (And done before current regulations.)

3) you cannot get what Logan really needs with further fill to the SE. You really cannot go directly east because of Winthrop. You cannot really go south because of the shipping lanes. But what Logan needs operationally is another full size 4/22 runway that has proper spacing for foul weather operation of 2 runways in that direction (current spacing is too tight for high wind, bad visibility operation). But there is no way to slot in another 4/22 runway in any reasonable fill configuration, so why bother?
 
Just build a floating airport beyond the harbor islands:
- Floating, so sea levels are never a concern
- Modular, so you can start small and expand it out as needed
- Absolute freedom of where to put it, so you can position flight paths in convenient ways

Only problem is building connections to it. Which is a huge problem.
 
DominusNovus said:
Just build a floating airport beyond the harbor islands:
- Floating, so sea levels are never a concern
- Modular, so you can start small and expand it out as needed
- Absolute freedom of where to put it, so you can position flight paths in convenient ways

Only problem is building connections to it. Which is a huge problem.
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That's the only problem? I would think being OUTSIDE THE HARBOR is the problem.
 
KentXie said:
I mean honestly the only solution in regards to the noise problem is to relocate the airport to some place less dense in Massachusetts. I don't know how that's going to work but ummm yeah, it's going to be impossible to make everyone happy.
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Yeah the thing about the current location is that half the surrounding area has zero density because it's the motherfuxking ocean. Hard to replicate that in the western suburbs.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Oh my, there are so many reasons why this won't happen.



3) you cannot get what Logan really needs with further fill to the SE. You really cannot go directly east because of Winthrop. You cannot really go south because of the shipping lanes. But what Logan needs operationally is another full size 4/22 runway that has proper spacing for foul weather operation of 2 runways in that direction (current spacing is too tight for high wind, bad visibility operation). But there is no way to slot in another 4/22 runway in any reasonable fill configuration, so why bother?
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Interesting. Yes impossible to get anything parallel to 4_22 because of how tight the Bayswater St side is.

But you *could* shift the entire ' Chelsea runway' (is it 15_33? Runs nw to se?) out towards deer island, potentially on piers, so that it wouldn't intersect with the 4/22s and so that you could run more frequently off it (and especially SE landings) without buzzing Eastie and Chelsea (and medford) as intensely as happens now (because with a shifted runway you'd havemore altitude over the populated places.) Plus Logan could use a little more airside space where the nw end of that runway is now for a bigger exonomy garage etc

( I know the harbor gets deep just west of deer island, but there's a lot of very shallow water to work with before you get to that Anchorage...)

And if you're going to all that trouble, you could also build another runway parallel to 9/ 27 (?), Which would let you do parallel ops into a west wind, and also launch takeoffs out over the reserve channel instead of over the fort point channel....
 
It would have been nice if they hadnt built 9/27 and built an extended 15L/33R parallel to 15R/33L but slightly staggered where they begin and end. Theres even a small taxiway that lines up with it too across the water.

figure-1.jpg


Speaking of constructed runways: Check this out if youd like. The best collection of photos of Logans history/expansion Ive seen.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wcvb.com/amp/article/historical-photos-logan-airport-in-the-1920s-and-now/8122242
 
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stick n move said:
It would have been nice if they hadnt built 9/27 and built an extended 15L/33R parallel to 15R/33L but slightly staggered where they begin and end. Theres even a small taxiway that lines up with it too across the water.

figure-1.jpg
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Yeah I have a vague memory of reading somewhere that that was the plan at one point, but Winthrop managed to stop it from happening because the extended, parallel 15L/33R would have been so close to the shore in winthrop (and they succeeded in stopping it in part because that section of the is airport actually within the town of Winthrop if I remember correctly?)

I wonder if it were tried again, with planes being so much quieter, if Massport might just be able to talk Winthrop into trading that new runway for a blue line branch and some Encore style concierge ferry service etc etc...[#crazypitches)

And for what its worth I suppose you could also do a southern version of 15/33 starting out in the water towards deer island and ending somewhere near midfield, lined up with terminal C ... but I'm not sure what the safety considerations are for having a runway line up at close range with a terminal... perhaps could make it one-way only specifically for harbor approaches and departures, like 14/32 (which is of course lined up at close range with a motherfxing hotel...)
 
CSTH said:
I wonder if it were tried again, with planes being so much quieter, if Massport might just be able to talk Winthrop into trading that new runway for a blue line branch and some Encore style concierge ferry service etc etc...[#crazypitches)
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giphy.gif
 
^Hey man crazypitches gonna crazy....

But fine let's negotiate it down to the Blue version of the Mattapan HSL...
 
CSTH said:
Yeah the thing about the current location is that half the surrounding area has zero density because it's the motherfuxking ocean. Hard to replicate that in the western suburbs.
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Yeah and you can blame this on piss poor planning and foresight. Build the airport close to the ocean but make sure that all traffic in Eastern Massachusetts have to go through downtown Boston to reach it. Also, don't build a direct rail service to the airport. We need to make sure all traffic into the airport must be reached via vehicular means.

Seriously though, I wonder if city planners in Boston ever attempted to think critically. It's shitty planning like this that leads to accidents like this:

boston.cbslocal.com

Woman Hit, Killed In South Boston Intersection Residents Have Complained About

A young woman was hit and killed by a van in South Boston late Wednesday night.
boston.cbslocal.com boston.cbslocal.com
 
^ This is kind of a non sequitur, no? Logan Airport becoming Boston's international is a consequence of decisions made in the 1950s. To tie that to light cycles and pairing them as evidence of chronic failure to think critically on the part of regional city planners is... not effective. Not saying your claim is wrong, just pointing out the relative weakness of this argument.
 
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