Logan Airport Capital Projects

With minimal fill they could easily make 15L/33R a viable runway without blocking any boat traffic. They should do that and get rid of 9/27. Not just to allow taller buildings, but its reaaaally not such a great idea sending massive jets directly at your downtown or trying to land by flying right past downtown. Its a single run way as well. 15/33 already has another runway pointing in that direction so youre not creating a new route. Jets fly up the mystic to keep noise down as well. I think this should be seriously considered not only is 9/27 unnecessarily dangerous, but jet noise is also going directly over downtown, the common, back bay, south end, roxbury, dorchester...etc. With 2 run ways in one direction and 2 in another it would be simpler from an operations perspective as well.

We already know people would bitch... same ppl who refused the red line because of “undesirables”... A runway already is going in that direction so tough shit. Safety issue, done. This plus a people mover and the new terminal would bring Logan into position to reach its potential of the 21st century without it being a total clusterf**.

9/27 is critical for Logan. Removing it would be disastrous from an operational standpoint and I can’t imagine such an idea would ever be seriously suggested or considered.
 
With minimal fill they could easily make 15L/33R a viable runway without blocking any boat traffic. They should do that and get rid of 9/27. Not just to allow taller buildings, but its reaaaally not such a great idea sending massive jets directly at your downtown or trying to land by flying right past downtown. Its a single run way as well. 15/33 already has another runway pointing in that direction so youre not creating a new route. Jets fly up the mystic to keep noise down as well. I think this should be seriously considered not only is 9/27 unnecessarily dangerous, but jet noise is also going directly over downtown, the common, back bay, south end, roxbury, dorchester...etc. With 2 run ways in one direction and 2 in another it would be simpler from an operations perspective as well.

We already know people would bitch... same ppl who refused the red line because of “undesirables”... A runway already is going in that direction so tough shit. Safety issue, done. This plus a people mover and the new terminal would bring Logan into position to reach its potential of the 21st century without it being a total clusterf**.
Reminder about runway alignment. #1 directional alignment for runways is dominant wind direction. Planes need to land and take off into the wind. Noise abatement is a distant #2 concern for runway alignment.

Logan has, I believe, the highest average wind speed of any major airport in the country. So runways aligned with dominant wind directions are critical to operations. At high wind speeds, you really need to use the runway closest to the wind direction for safe operation, and 9/27 fulfills one of those major vectors. (As do 4/22 and 15/33)

Also, as discussed in a post above. Like 4L/22R and 4R/22L, a full length 15L/33R paired with 15R/33L are too close together for adverse weather operations (low visibility, gusty conditions). So many days of the year parallel operations would not be allowed. To get any decent bang for the investment, any new parallel runways need to be far enough apart to allow parallel operation under adverse conditions. Otherwise, why bother!
 
Visuals from July Massport BOD Meeting are available
Some very interesting stuff on the next few months, etc. of construction on all projects
see:


starting at slide 45 -- Strategic Plan Implementation:
Slide 53: Massport’s Port Access Plan: Preserve existing routes and build missing links
Slide 84 -- PARCEL H UPDATE
Slide 87 -- COMMONWEALTH PIER REDEVELOPMENT
Slide 94 -- PARCEL A-2

Slide 98: Facilities and Construction
TERMINAL B TO C ROADWAY IMPROVEMENTS
TERMINAL C CANOPY AND UPPER DECK
Slide 127 LOGAN AIRPORT PARKING PROGRAM
Terminal E Garage -- complete with a lot of renders, etc.
Slide 146 CENTRAL HEATING PLANT UPGRADE
 
Not to dig this controversy from a few pages ago back up, but somebody listened to the complaints about the lack of trees and rendered some in. (plus, even more roads than before!)
1570143848635.png
 
Not to dig this controversy from a few pages ago back up, but somebody listened to the complaints about the lack of trees and rendered some in. (plus, even more roads than before!)
View attachment 393
How many lanes is that. 5 lanes? Two lanes? Who knows? I hope the final product doesn't look like that, I can't stand those traditional Boston chaotic merges.
 
This is going to be a large improvement over the current roadway setup. I don't think there are any additional roads, just some re-positioning of them.
 
This is going to be a large improvement over the current roadway setup. I don't think there are any additional roads, just some re-positioning of them.
Mass --- I think that when fully realized there will be effectively some new lanes to optimize the approaches to some of the terminal loading / unloading areas and whole lot of reworking of the approaches to the reconstructed Central Garage Complex [including the new E-Terminal Garage]

But -- mostly the improvements involve the merging of traffic to prevent one terminal's flow from influencing the next terminal up the line -- today a local bottleneck can easily spread
 
SFO is spending about $600 million for a higher seawall to protect the airport from a rise in sea levels. From the map, the seawall will extend along the entire perimeter of the airport. And Logan's plan is?

 
SFO is spending about $600 million for a higher seawall to protect the airport from a rise in sea levels. From the map, the seawall will extend along the entire perimeter of the airport. And Logan's plan is?


Logan's plan may be that it's not as much under threat as SFO. The airport isn't actually as vulnerable as you'd think it is.

EastBoston_3_GFA-test_EastBoston_070116-east-boston_36in_East-Boston-Crop.jpg
 
Would be cheaper to just use seaplanes
They tend to be really low-capacity and a barf-bag ride on takeoff/landing, with the barf bag getting fuller the bigger and less agile the plane is. Impractical for any airliner-level capacity and more the realm of pondskippers to islands too small for airports.
 
So is the solution the Dutch model: a dike around the perimeter and a plan to be (always) able to pump water from the low point in the bathtub out to the sea?

Or would they try to raise those infields and aprons so that the low point could still drain by gravity?
 
So is the solution the Dutch model: a dike around the perimeter and a plan to be (always) able to pump water from the low point in the bathtub out to the sea?

Or would they try to raise those infields and aprons so that the low point could still drain by gravity?
From this article in the San Francisco Examiner, it appears they intend to dike and keep the water out. No mention of pumps if water gets in.

sea-wall-3_850x374.jpg


It would appear that the strategy is to build these higher, and now encompass the entire airport perimeter.

Of note, the cost has increased 10-fold in three years.

FEMA does not have a flood map for the airport itself. (This is the map of Logan that equilibria included in his post.) In the flood map for San Mateo, Highway 101, which runs along the west side of the airport would flood,

Logan's elevation above mean sea level is 20 feet, San Francisco's is 13 feet. The mean tidal range (between high and low tide) for Boston is nearly four feet more than for San Francisco.
 
At some point diking becomes a hazard to airport operations (high walls that landing gear can catch on). Logan may do better raising the runways and taxiways, but the process would be a nightmare.
 
I don't know about you guys, but 40,000 people live in Jeffries Point and I'm way, way more worried about them in a flood than I am Logan which would still have at least one unblocked runway taking flights in worst-case flood. People > things and all that.
 
I don't know about you guys, but 40,000 people live in Jeffries Point and I'm way, way more worried about them in a flood than I am Logan which would still have at least one unblocked runway taking flights in worst-case flood. People > things and all that.
F-line I don't think anything close to 40,000 live in Jeffries Point

According to the 2010 Census 40,000 people live in all of East Boston -- let's assume that each of the sub neighborhoods [as shown on the map] has an equal share of the population that would put Jeffries Point at about 8,000 to 10,000
Even assuming East Boston's population doubled during the past decade -- you only end up with 16,000 [5 sub neighborhoods] to 20,000 [4 sub neighborhoods]
with the neighborhoods shown on the Map below from the East Boston wiki

1280px-East_boston_neighborhood_map_ol.svg.png
 
SFO is spending about $600 million for a higher seawall to protect the airport from a rise in sea levels. From the map, the seawall will extend along the entire perimeter of the airport. And Logan's plan is?

Not at all relevant -- even if you believe the projections to be on-target [all previous projections have been high]

Why -- is the comparison not relevant: because SF Tides are about 1/2 of the Tides at Logan [Boston Harbor] -- that means that BOS has to be raised by about the same amount above the mean sea level vs SFO as Boston Harbor Tidal range is compared to SF -- just to accomodate the daily tidal range and the annual astronomical high tide [astronomical low tide is irrelevant]

for example today
SF
SaturdayTides in South San Francisco 10/12/19 [ref to Mean Low Water] in ft.

AM PM
H L H L
0408 5.0 0955 2.7 1520 4.3 2136 1.1
Rng [ft] 2.3 3.2

Saturday Tides in Boston Harbor 10/12/19 [ref to Mean Low Water] in ft.
HighLow

AMftPMftAMftPMft

11:109.711:279.84:560.75:130.6

Rng [ft] AM 9 PM 9.2

Now obviously Tides have been larger by some factor of about 30% based on the alignment of Sun Moon Earth -- but ignoring this

Consider that the current airport has to have some [free board] above mean high water to prevent flooding today just do to normal waves -- Hypothetically that the margin be 5 ft. above today's highest tide -- that would put the runway surface at [above Mean Low Water]
SFO 10 ft.
BOS 14.8 ft

BOS has a lot more margin for error than SFO since most of the time the tides are well off the high tide level even adding 1 ft. for rising sea level [unreasonable]
 
Interesting --

According to Logan Forward --- Happening Now
the only work in and for the Term E area is:
INITIATIVE​
STATUS​
TIMINGTRAVEL TIPS

Terminal E ModernizationNew service road, permanent road reconfiguration.Ongoing, expected completion late November 2019Please be aware of construction activities in the area.


Not clear why a Service Road project needs a Pile Driver unless there is some ramp work involved
 
The Terminal E expansion project is indeed underway. Logan Forward appears to only outline the aspects of projects directly impacting the public.
 

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