.jpg)
We are sensitive to getting you all riled up about yet another “neighborhood issue.” But the Miller Park Blog’s post about aircraft noise in the area has value beyond increasing your feeling of civic inadequacy. Go ahead and read it without feeling compelled to be “active.” Instead, read it for nothing more than the information about why Sea-Tac’s jets cruise directly over your house. Especially informative is the e-mail linked to in the post. Here’s a clip:
Flights need to change direction based on weather. Roughly
70% of the year, Sea-tac is in a “South Flow” pattern meaning all
flights land and depart from the North to the South. When in a South
Flow pattern, EVERY FLIGHT LANDING AT SEA-TAC flies in a straight
line from 520, directly over Capitol Hill, then the Central District,
then Beacon Hill until landing at Sea-Tac. The target path is
roughly over 19th Avenue. 100% of the burden of all descending
flight noise is upon these neighborhood when in a South Flow pattern.
We’ve been told all sorts of B.S. about why the planes are so loud up here and in nearby neighborhoods. Interesting to see this explanation. The mail also makes the point that this flight pattern seems to negatively affect a lot of people in the city while seemingly avoiding other, less populous areas. Without getting too black helicopter about the whole thing, it would be interesting to hear the Port of Seattle’s explanation for Sea-Tac’s patterns.
If you *are* feeling a little activism come over you, the mail goes on to describe a Catch-22 in the Port of Seattle’s noise abatement system involving sensors. Apparently, there are no noise sensors on Capitol Hill. Mercer Island and lots of other surrounding areas, yes. Capitol Hill and White Center, supposedly no. If you have some extra civic activism bandwidth, the mail has a few suggestions where to point it in this regard. But you might want to get the crosswalk on 15th nailed first — and stop the Blue Angels — and build an ice cream shop in the neighborhood, too, of course.
–j/k
Blame the original airport planners. Open up your favorite map website (or actual map, if you’re feeling old-skool), find SeaTac airport, look where the runways are, and draw a straight line extending from them continuing in the same direction. (If this link thing works, you might be able to see it here.) Yup, that’s the flightpath we know and love.
If planes flew over the lake or Mercer Island instead, then they’d end up landing on the 167 / Valley Freeway instead of SeaTac – unless they could get in a sharp turn or two to shuffle westward back to the airport.
If only they’d built it where Discovery Park is, then planes would be able to approach over water from both directions, and we wouldn’t be complaining about this… :-P
Probably not a lot that can be done about the current approach over cap hill, without moving the airport, or turning the runways to point elsewhere. There’s a limit to how late in the approach incoming planes can turn; and likely they’d prefer to not have to turn at all. Some airports do have tricky approaches (Hong Kong?) but that’s usually due to geographical or other physical constraints. They’re unlikely to add extra swerves to an approach just to keep some folk happy.
Thanks for the insight, musely. We’re filing all of this in the “good to know” category for now. No seeking change here. No, siree.
I was thinking the other night that besides an ice cream shop, a pho shop would work well in that space too. Then I wouldn’t have to walk *all the way* down to Broadway to choose from among the four or five pho places down there.
hear, hear on the pho
what the pho is up with all the pho places on broadway and not a one on 15th
but also – what the pho is up with so much Thai and Vietnamese in Seattle and almost no good Chinese or Korean BBQ to speak of?
oh yeah, the airplane noise sucks too.
Pho is the new Thai – which was foermerly the new Teriaki.
The Thai bubble seems to have peaked, however – 15th is down to only two, down from three before the Teapot took over the spot where one used to be.
Than Bros on b/way is the only pho place on the hill worth going to, IMO. I don’t mind walking all the way down there – but it’s the walking all the way back up that gets me.
There is actually a “What The Pho” – it’s in downtown Bellevue.
I’m not sure an ice-cream store has too much chance up on 15th – probably not enough passing foot traffic. People will go out of their way to visit a restaurant, but I’m guessing a ice-cream place is much more dependant on passing traffic. And if Broadway couldn’t sustain either B&J’s or BR, I don’t see 15th having too much chance.
Unless, perhaps, one of the other stores could be pursuaded to add ice-cream to their line-up – like the way Pagliacci’s on B’way sells gelato… Victrola or Lladro would probably be best bests.
i say this as a huge fan and daily patron of Victrola.
they’re WAY too cool for ice cream.
I agree – certainly regular ice cream wouldn’t cut it at all there – would at least have to be gelato – which is arguably to ice cream what espresso is to “coffee”.
I agree that the original airport planners were not exactly visionary when designing the airport location and orientation. However, I’ve lived in Seattle most of my life and on Capitol Hill for more than 10 years and was never troubled by flight noise until recently.
Things have changed in the last few years and these changes have directly and negatively impacted our neighborhood. One of the major changes is the descending flight altitude, which is significantly lower now than in previous years. Another change is that all the approaching flights are now concentrated over a few neighborhoods, whereas previously they were distributed equitably across several neighborhoods, including Mercer Island. One thing that hasn’t significantly changed since 2000, however, is the actual number of flights. I was surprised to learn that the flight volume only just recently matched the pre-9/11 volume. We can expect things to get much worse when the third runway is completed.
While the map you linked to (it does work!) looks normal enough, if you look at the flight map for Seattle at http://www.skyvector.com, you’ll see that the actual target flight path is a few degrees east of the straight line from the runway. I would argue that the runway is actually pointed directly at downtown, which is no longer an appropriate path for obvious reasons. However, it seems they could have just as easily oriented the flight path a few degrees west of downtown to direct all the traffic over primarily industrial Duwamish and the water. While this may result in an added burden to Georgetown, at least there are fewer residents there and they are not situated on a hill.
Generally though, I can think of no reason to line planes up in a single straight path many miles in advance of the airport, nor can I surmise the logic in lowering the altitude over highly concentrated residential neighborhoods. At other airports planes actually can turn and land within relatively short order. San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland are prime examples, where higher volumes and multiple airports within a close vicinity create even more complicating factors than a city situated roughly 15 miles North of the airport.
Oh, and I would love some gelato and/or ice cream on 15th! For those of you interested in a walk, Vios on 19th has Gelato.