Thinking about a New Hanscom

whighlander said:
F-Line -- as usual you've got the technical details -- BUT policy-wise - Air Freight is probably the least likely use of the AF part of Hanscom -- the NIMBYs fight tooth and nail over a couple of CRJ's a day to Philly or DC -- you can't imagine the uproar from SShare and other local flash NIMBY groups if someone proposed regular 767 or bigger planes landing -- Hanscom gets blamed when the winds force approaches to Logan to fly over Lexington

No -- the prime role of Hanscom is private jets as that's already there -- that means major corporation R&D to benefit from the access

I think the best airport for Air Cargo in the Greater Boston Area -- Pease in Portsmouth NH -- though South Weymouth would have been good if the NIMBYs could have been quelled
Click to expand...

Well, then MA pays the price by not having air freight potential. Because no way in hell are the NIMBY's going to allow it in South Weymouth, and Worcester has its unsolvable road access constraints. Pease has the onsite rail access that competes with Hartford's more limited capacity, but it's inactive because Pan Am has had such a hard time fighting local opposition to take any advantage of that intermodal or get NH leaders to find ass from elbows to help. Ayer and Lawrence are their big intermodal transfers anyway because that's where the Norfolk Southern partnership terminates and all the regional trucking realignment is going to the 495 belt to match up with CSX/Worcester and Pan Am Southern/Ayer. Hanscom is hands-down the site that's better for multimodal air freight access than anywhere else in New England. If it's off-limits because of local yokels or lack of effort then--tough shit--the time-sensitive business stays wholly out-of-region. Pease is not going to pick up that slack not being near enough to the region's trucking/intermodal nerve center.

That's the choice. Do they want it or not.


I don't think private jets are going to float all their dream synergies with the AFB site anyway. They need as many juicy hooks as they can get to bind all that underutilized airfield capacity with the redevelopment. Either this state starts trying to rein in the escalating Operation Chaos missiles constantly launched by local residents everywhere further outside of town than Soldiers Field Rd. or we start paying the price of diminishing economic returns from the 'burbs. Simple as that. The drag effect from all the suburban friction is taking its toll. This site can easily be Westwood Landing x20 in the abject frustration dept. if they let it happen that way.
 
whighlander said:
I think the best airport for Air Cargo in the Greater Boston Area -- Pease in Portsmouth NH -- though South Weymouth would have been good if the NIMBYs could have been quelled
Click to expand...

Is there a reason both of you are disregarding MHT? It's already a major package center for Northern NE, has great new freeway access (without the expected passenger demand to saturate it), and it's slightly quicker to Boston from there than from Pease.

I agree with Wigh on freight at Hanscom. Thing is, while its unreasonable for someone to move next to an airport then complain about the noise, adding a regional freight operation adds a huge amount of traffic the residents weren't expecting. That's playing right into the NIMBYs' hands, since they actually have a valid point in that case.

Regional passenger jets don't add that much extra noise (once or twice per day) when you compare them to business and military flights (the latter being the real noise issues). If you allow them to lump those passenger shuttles in with a whole new proposed freight hub, you make their argument a lot easier, even if its still irrational.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Well, then MA pays the price by not having air freight potential. Because no way in hell are the NIMBY's going to allow it in South Weymouth, and Worcester has its unsolvable road access constraints. Pease has the onsite rail access that competes with Hartford's more limited capacity, but it's inactive because Pan Am has had such a hard time fighting local opposition to take any advantage of that intermodal or get NH leaders to find ass from elbows to help..... Pease is not going to pick up that slack not being near enough to the region's trucking/intermodal nerve center.

That's the choice. Do they want it or not.


I don't think private jets are going to float all their dream synergies with the AFB site anyway. They need as many juicy hooks as they can get to bind all that underutilized airfield capacity with the redevelopment. Either this state starts trying to rein in the escalating Operation Chaos missiles constantly launched by local residents everywhere further outside of town than Soldiers Field Rd. or we start paying the price of diminishing economic returns from the 'burbs. Simple as that. The drag effect from all the suburban friction is taking its toll. This site can easily be Westwood Landing x20 in the abject frustration dept. if they let it happen that way.
Click to expand...


F-Line -- Hanscom is already the 2nd busiest airfield in New England when it comes to flight operations. It really has only minimal available operations slots in the waking hours. However, some of the low-value private prop operations can move to somewhere like Worcester or South Weymouth or even some of the small private airfields and reserve the slots for the corporate jets and some limited commercial service.

Air Freight is going to go to places such as Pease or perhaps Manchester if South Weymouth is closed-out by NIMBY action and if Worcester doesn't get better highway access. As far as intermodal component of air freight -- there is such a dis-similarity in air cargo weight and size with typical rail freight that I don't see any advantage to a rail connection to the airfreightport.

All you need for sucessful air freight is a place for the planes to land, a place for trucks to park and be loaded, and access to a near-by interstate. Pease is almost astride I-95 and Manchester is very close to I-93 -- both of them provide more than adequate access to the rest of the Greater Boston region. Logan is also available for the real-long-haul domestic, small package (Fedex, UPS) and International Air Freight.
 
I may have missed something, but is there any potential for South Weymouth to remain an airfield? I think the whole site has been sold and designated for redevelopment, and IIRC the runways have been torn into already, along with much of the taxiways and aprons.

According to Google's imagery (which I think is 2010 for the Boston area, one RW is basically gone, along with its TW system. One is still whole, and some of the apron is left, but the pavement is probably not salvageable by this point. If this was for a Logan replacement, ok, they probably find the money, but not to rehab for a few GA flights.
 
This seems related:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma..._research_lab_in_bedford/?p1=Well_Local_Links

I wonder if the MIT investment was related to the ESC closure decision - that MIT would effectively take over the operation under a separate name, roof, and mandate.

I know that Lincoln is prepping to replace a lot of the 50s-60s buildings on its own campus, and I thought at first that's what this was, but it seems like a totally separate deal, somewhere else on the Hanscom property.

I don't know all the issues, of course, but if this is not to be co-located with the current lab, this plan makes the most sense to me:

http://g.co/maps/z4dcu

Traffic in and out of LL on Wood Street is awful, with NPS cops trying to manage the whole thing. Close the Wood St. gate, have a signalized entry point off of 2A with another off of Hartwell, and locate the new facility so that it boxes up the hilltop radar and medical facilities and builds a cohesive campus that doesn't jut too far into the base proper. I think that loop area is where ESC was, but I may be wrong.
 
Equilibria said:
This seems related:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma..._research_lab_in_bedford/?p1=Well_Local_Links

I wonder if the MIT investment was related to the ESC closure decision - that MIT would effectively take over the operation under a separate name, roof, and mandate.

I know that Lincoln is prepping to replace a lot of the 50s-60s buildings on its own campus, and I thought at first that's what this was, but it seems like a totally separate deal, somewhere else on the Hanscom property.

I don't know all the issues, of course, but if this is not to be co-located with the current lab, this plan makes the most sense to me:

http://g.co/maps/z4dcu

Traffic in and out of LL on Wood Street is awful, with NPS cops trying to manage the whole thing. Close the Wood St. gate, have a signalized entry point off of 2A with another off of Hartwell, and locate the new facility so that it boxes up the hilltop radar and medical facilities and builds a cohesive campus that doesn't jut too far into the base proper. I think that loop area is where ESC was, but I may be wrong.
Click to expand...

Equili -- Wood st. is the Lincoln Gate -- at this point in the evolution of Hanscom -- the combined complex all of which was part of the land ceded to the Army for the original Hanscom Army Air Field is effectively segregated into:

1) Lincoln -- reasonable public access through the Wood St. Gate with just a driver's license and a reason such as a public seminar in the Cafeteria
2) Hanscom AFB -- tightly controlled access from Hartwell and Hanscom Drive off Rt-2A-- public generally not welcome
3) Massport property and Hanscom Field -- general public access from Hanscom Drive off Rt-2A and Virginia Road / Old Bedford Rd in Concord
4) some AF, some Massport land -- essentially inaccessible from any public road
5) land which closely borders the Battle Road and the Minutemen's access trail - which the NPs would very much like to control if not own
6) the old Raytheon complex off Hartwell Rd (not to be confused with Hartwell Ave)

To properly reconstruct the complex into an integrated mixed-use defense and other specialized and high-end research cluster -- all of the 6 land categories need to be addressed to insure modern road access and ideally something like a Mattapan-branch local trolley connected to Cambridge and Burlington NW Park / Network Drive. The connection from Hanscom to Burlington and possibly the other way to Winter St. in Waltham can be expedited by using the ROW for the 345 KV transmission lines which nominally parallel Rt-128 and are of course un-built-upon
 
whighlander said:
Equili -- Wood st. is the Lincoln Gate -- at this point in the evolution of Hanscom -- the combined complex all of which was part of the land ceded to the Army for the original Hanscom Army Air Field is effectively segregated into:

1) Lincoln -- reasonable public access through the Wood St. Gate with just a driver's license and a reason such as a public seminar in the Cafeteria
Click to expand...

My point was that if Lincoln took over the other lobe of those roadways for this new set of buildings, the semi-public realm would be expanded to the point where the Wood St. gate would be redundant and the inferior option. As the base is currently utilized, Wood St. must remain open, but I'm pretty sure the AF is ditching the whole of the area between Lincoln and 2A. There's nothing secure over there to protect at this point.

Transit is only viable where there is ridership, and I'm not sure that many people need to get between Network Drive and Lincoln to necessitate a link (I'm not sure enough people travel from Hanscom to the MIT campus, frankly). In the future if this area is developed into an exurban center with real density, maybe, but not now.
 
I took a look at the story in the Globe -- glad to see that someone is thinking clearly

I was not aware that such a complex had progressed to the point that it was approved in the Pentagon

I'm assuming that the proposal is to build a specialized sub-100 nm Fab for DOD and other Federal Agencies -- if so -- this is a super super development for the HUB!!
 
whighlander said:
I took a look at the story in the Globe -- glad to see that someone is thinking clearly

I was not aware that such a complex had progressed to the point that it was approved in the Pentagon

I'm assuming that the proposal is to build a specialized sub-100 nm Fab for DOD and other Federal Agencies -- if so -- this is a super super development for the HUB!!
Click to expand...

Checked with some people - this isn't actually that big a deal. Just some additional replacement buildings on the current LL site that have been planned for a while. It is, however, a nice vote of confidence in Hanscom-based research by MIT and DOD.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top