Residents: Airplane Noise Getting Worse South Flow Alliance Aims to Get FAA to Address Noise in the Mount Vernon Neighborhoods
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Page 12 Mount Vernon’s Hometown Newspaper • A Connection Newspaper May 18, 2017 Residents: Airplane Noise Getting Worse South Flow Alliance aims to get FAA to address noise in the Mount Vernon neighborhoods. By Steve Hibbard when they’re making changes this The Gazette dramatic. We have to try to ad- dress this situation at hand, which ary Tracy, a retired is totally broken and needs fixed. foreign service of- This cannot continue. We’re going Mficer from Hollin to work hard but we need your Hills, can’t sit on help to get there; it won’t happen her porch in the morning due to without your calling, your emails, the piercing airplane noises flying by contacting the FAA with your over her community from Reagan frustrations. It will happen be- Airport (DCA). The homes in her cause the people in this commu- historic community have single nity will not let this stand.” pane glass, she said, so when the Mike Rioux, the Mount Vernon planes are as low as 1,800 feet, District representative to the Met- they rattle the walls (as high as ropolitan Washington Airports Au- 90 db) and leave her pictures thority (MWAA) Reagan National hanging crooked. Sometimes Hibbard/The Gazette Steve Airport Community Working there are as many as 20 planes an Group, was invited to give a hour. PowerPoint presentation to the “It’s pretty deafening here when group on airplane traffic and noise. they’re flying over here. It’s very Before April 2015, the naviga- disturbing and it goes on past 11 tion was radar based, he said, so p.m. They start sometimes at 6 the noise was spread over a wider a.m. It’s a very loud and disturb- path. When NextGen came in, the ing,” she said. flight path narrowed. So now To make matters worse, she said more flights are flying in concen- the Federal Aviation Administra- About 100 people attended the South Flow Alliance Community Action Meeting on trated tracks. Rioux said before tion (FAA) has refused to listen to Wednesday, May 10, at Walt Whitman Middle School in Alexandria. there was “equal opportunity the people south of Reagan Air- noise” spread out over a wider port and her local state legislators procedures changed airplane de- Hollindale, Kirkside and Marlan to address chronic airplane noise area. “Now we have a real concen- seem to be missing in action. parture flight tracks in those neigh- Forest. over their neighborhoods. On trated set of flight tracks over a Since April 2015, the problem borhoods. Before, the flights were To deal with this problem, Wednesday, May 10, a crowd of specific community,” he said. has only gotten worse for people more spread out, but now they are there’s a new group of residents 100 people got briefed on this What NextGen is doing is con- living south of Reagan Airport in concentrated over a few neighbor- in the Fort Hunt area that have problem at the SFA Community solidating the airplanes into a Alexandria and Mount Vernon. hoods. The hardest hit areas are formed the South Flow Alliance Action Meeting at Walt Whitman single on-ramp so what ends up That’s because the FAA’s NextGen Hollin Hills, Villamy, Mason Hill, (SFA), which aims to get the FAA Middle School. happening is that 20 percent of the “I live in Riverside Gardens and community is getting bombarded I hear planes at all times in the day with noise and airplane congestion or night and I’ve never heard it like on designated flight paths, he said. it is today,” said Mount Vernon “When it was radar based, it was District Supervisor Dan Storck of a wide path over the city and af- the 300-plus daily departures at fected a lot of communities; they Reagan Airport per month — a were sharing the pain. But when number that exceeds that of Dulles GPS came in, the flight path nar- Airport (IAD). He said the num- rowed and became more concen- ber changed radically two years trated,” said Stephen Thayer, the ago when NextGen changed the City of Alexandria’s representative flight paths in the Metroplex with- to the Metropolitan Washington out giving any public input on the Airports Authorities Community matter. Noise Working Group. Storck added: “And that to me In Old Town, Thayer said the is unacceptable; it’s wrong to im- flight paths that now exist take pose something on a community aircraft over the west bank of the Graphic Contributed that is a Democratic republic. Of- Potomac River. More concentrated ficials should be coming to us See Residents, Page 6 5/19/17 Requested in home in Requested material. Time-sensitive Postmaster: Attention Permit #482 Permit The Alexandria neighborhoods of Villamay, Mason Hill, Hollin Hills, Hollindale, VA Alexandria, PAID Kirkside and Marlan Forest are directly affected by airplanes using the NextGen RNAV Postage U.S. departure flight tracks (shown in red lines). STD PRSRT www.ConnectionNewspapers.com Mount Vernon Gazette ❖ May 18-24, 2017 ❖ 1 2 ❖ Mount Vernon Gazette ❖ May 18-24, 2017 www.ConnectionNewspapers.com Mount Vernon Gazette Editor Steven Mauren News 703-778-9415 or [email protected] Reviewing Redevelopment Challenges of Route 1 Embark Richmond Highway meeting examines project complexities. By Mike Salmon 1 in a couple of areas, looked at the multi- The Gazette faceted process. “Embark is a process to help make land use changes so the most is made hree information posters at the to redevelop Route 1 so it can support tran- Embark Richmond Highway sit,” he said. TMeeting showed how compli- Area officials need to build the case for cated rerouting, widening and transit, and present it to the Federal Tran- transforming a road like this was. They were sit Administration for a grant, and it will all “at-a-glance,” themed around the Hun- be competing with other projects in the U.S. tington, Groveton and Mount Vernon areas During questions from the audience, one that were full of graphs and charts reflect- woman who was on housing subsidies that ing the demographics the Embark plan was amounted to $900 a month wanted to know encompassing, including transit, housing, about affordable housing, here in an area by Mike Salm Photos schools, parks, historic sites and environ- where the median price of a home is mental needs. $521,000 according to Zillow.com. “This is a work in progress,” said Mount Storck talked about North Hill, a low in- Vernon Supervisor Dan Storck, who went come project off Lockheed Boulevard that through the slide portion of the meeting he is hoping will be under construction talking about big picture items that require soon. justification and federal funding. “It will A pedestrian problem on Route 1 was dis- on truly transform our community,” he said, cussed as well that many were aware of, noting that the current road configuration Pallas Washington, the Fairfax including Jack Crawford, a resident of Mount Vernon District Supervisor was from the 1950s and 1960s. County regional manager for Mount Vernon. “I’ve seen a woman with a Dan Storck discusses the progress Change has started on this corridor Neighborhood and Community baby carriage in the street, that’s insane,” on Embark Richmond Highway. though and getting rid of a seedy hotel in Services, explained the “at-a- he said. Woodlawn was a small but significant vic- glance,” display boards to the Tom Biesiadny, from the Fairfax County yet. According to the plan, construction will tory for Storck. “[It] is now history,” he said residents at the Embark Department of Transportation, noted the begin on this $214.8 million project in early with a smile. meeting. various sidewalk projects in the works and 2023. Next step is to change the Fairfax County others that were completed recently. “We “That’s what this year is all about,” said Comprehensive Plan, which is in progress geography was uncertain. The year 2040 agree with you that there’s a need for more Storck, who spoke of his plan for commu- and will most likely be resolved in early was on one of the slides. pedestrian facilities, this summer you’ll see nity meetings in June and July. In the audi- 2018 after a series of meetings and public Over the summer there will be more resi- several more projects underway,” he said. ence was Stewart Schwartz, the executive hearings. Then the timeframe for dential meetings. Public hearings in the fall The Virginia Department of Transporta- director of the Coalition for Smarter reconfiguring intersections, redesigning will be followed by a draft of amendments tion has started a project to widen a por- Growth, and he endorsed the plan because corridors, implementing a bus rapid transit to the comprehensive plan which will then tion of Route 1 in the Woodlawn area from it’s working with transit-oriented develop- system, and making the Route 1 corridor go before the Board of Supervisors. Del. Jeff Todd Way northward to Napper Road, ment. “A lot of benefits come from redevel- something that reflects modern day urban Mark Sickles, whose district touches Route but a shovel hasn’t actually broke ground opment in a smart growth way,” he said. Pow Wow Explores Native American Culture ment which they have relied on through the Honoring mother years. It was Mother’s Day, so “mother earth,” was mentioned more than once. earth at Fort Hunt Apensanahkwat, part Menominee and part Ojibway was in from Wisconsin where his Park. relatives grew up. “When I’m dancing, I am dancing for my life, for the creator.