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www.quietskiesconference.org

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https://anesymposium.aqrc.ucdavis.edu

www.scscroundtable.org

Quick News Points

18 January 2017 Letter to Palo Alto City Council The city has a critical window in which to become part of a regional process designed to shape and implement jet noise solutions. However, the city must act quickly. Read Sky Posse's three requests to our elected officials.

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8 Talking Points

#1 THE PROBLEM IS PERVASIVE
We have heavy air traffic from five airports. The Bay Area is the 7th largest airport Metroplex in the US. Flights affect Palo Alto residential neighborhoods, schools, and parks - frequent, loud, low-flying airplanes disrupting productivity, sleep, and quality of life.

#2 PALO ALTO IS DISPROPORTIONATELY AFFECTED
Our community is under the convergence of 3 of the 4 approach routes into SFO, with traffic descending above Palo Alto from the North, South, and West. Few, if any other communities at these distances from SFO, OAK, or SJC experience this daily level of traffic. As airplanes have been flying at lower altitudes and there are more flights, these approaches are more invasive. In addition, traffic congestion causes increased duration of noise when planes make turns to extend their routes over our neighborhoods as they line up for the final approach to SFO.

#3 ADDRESSING AVIATION NOISE POLLUTION OVER PALO ALTO IS AN URGENT ISSUE
The current levels of aircraft noise are not tolerable for a sustained period of time. Enduring flight route changes have been made over Palo Alto, which has historically tolerated noise impacts from far lighter air traffic, but not the hundreds of daily flights it is exposed to now. As a practical matter, the City of Palo Alto was never consulted on the changes to increase the capacity of all Bay area airports using these particular routes over our community.

#4 THE CONCENTRATION OF ROUTES TO IMPACT THE SAME NEIGHBORHOODS REPEATEDLY IS UNFAIR
NextGen’s precision routing technologies could in fact dramatically improve the situation to the benefit of both the flying and the residential public. When used unwisely, as they are now, they dramatically worsen it. It’s misleading to call NextGen’s “net noise reduction” policy noise reduction when it reduces the aviation noise for some by severely increasing it for others. This unfair distribution of the noise burden calls for alternate designs that consider the population on the ground.

#5 NOISE ABATEMENT MUST BE PROACTIVE AND PREVENTATIVE, NOT REACTIVE
The current system uses antiquated noise metrics, and policies that promote obfuscation. They exhaust and discourage impacted citizens from advocating for progress (it quiets the public, not the noise). The practice of excluding impacted communities on the ground has tilted the pendulum too far toward protecting commerce, but a sincere balancing of community interests has not been evident. Groundlings should be equal stakeholders with airlines, airports and industry in noise assessment and airspace design.

#6 THE CITY OF PALO ALTO HAS NOT HAD A VOICE IN NOISE ABATEMENT INITIATIVES
SFO has established a mechanism to 'prevent noise shifting between communities', as part of the SFO Roundtable, but this policy has been explicitly limited to the County of San Mateo. Palo Alto has never had such protections, and the results are evident. A body of regional oversight is necessary, which is inclusive of any community with a problem.

#7 THE SITUATION IS FIXABLE
The San Francisco Bay presents a unique opportunity to avoid flight descents that cross the heavily populated Midpeninsula residential areas below 8000 feet. Better design can be achieved with community input to assist the FAA in developing a more flexible and thoughtful route system. Improvements for both the residential and the flying public are possible - better flight routing, more equitable sharing of noise impacts, and the continuation of the FAA’s work on the modernization of other methods of noise abatement.

#8 PALO ALTO IS PREPARED TO HELP WITH SOLVING THE PROBLEM
An FAA administrator liaison specifically assigned to work with Palo Alto would be a good first step. Citizens are supporting a professional study, and want to be as effective as possible in working with the FAA to alter routes so that planes fly above 6000 feet when they cross Palo Alto and other cities and then descend over the Bay. Routes should also allow for a curfew to eliminate low flying nightly cargo and passenger flights.