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Planned traffic-calming measures at Burr and Dean.
“I don’t believe you anymore.”
“Nobody cares about the residents here.”
“You people make all these promises, and nothing is done.”
Morris Cove residents lobbed those accusations and others against Tweed Airport, during a public meeting about a city traffic proposal intended to mitigate some of those neighbors’ concerns.
Tweed Airport’s Environmental Stewardship Committee met via Zoom on April 15 to discuss the city’s plans to build a new airport exit, traffic roundabout, and pedestrian crosswalk at the intersection of Burr and Dean Streets.
Morris Cove residents advocating against the airport’s growth have decried the clogged traffic associated with airport travelers, among many other concerns.
The goal of the new exit and roundabout, said City Engineer Giovanni Zinn, is to “lower the frequency with which [traffic] backups happen into the neighborhood” and to produce “a traffic-calming effect, eliminating people whipping around this corner.”
Zinn said that the traffic infrastructure will not be tied to airport travel if Tweed’s long-planned expansion, involving moving its terminal to the East Haven side of the airport, comes to fruition. “We don’t build infrastructure for just 3 years… The goal here is to build infrastructure and safety into that intersection,” he said.
In response to feedback from families of the nearby Nathan Hale elementary school, Zinn pointed to an electronic sign that will be used to direct traffic, which he said would be altered for the school’s drop-off and dismissal hours.
“We would maintain existing traffic patterns on Townsend Avenue during drop-off and dismissal,” Zinn said. “No airport traffic will be directed to pass Nathan Hale school during drop-off and pickup times.”
Some expressed skepticism over that plan.
“I don’t see how you’re gonna direct traffic away from Nathan Hale,” said Morris Cove resident Lisa Bassani, who has been a vocal anti-Tweed activist. “Cars are just going to be following GPS wherever it’s taking them.”
“It seems to assume that drop-off and pickup times are the only times a child is at risk,” said Karyl Lee Hall. Plus, she added, “People don’t obey the signs anywhere.”
A few neighbors suggested that the airport coordinate with GPS services and rideshare companies to avoid the Nathan Hale area during drop-off and dismissal.
Andrew King, the spokesperson for Avports (the company that manages Tweed), said that the airport has tried to coordinate with private GPS and rideshare companies and ultimately does not control the routes they provide to drivers, but said that “now might be time to have another conversation with them.”
Some Morris Cove community members argued that the road infrastructure would not address the root cause of their traffic concerns: the frequency of airport flights.
King stressed that the airlines, Avelo and Breeze, are the entities that schedule departures and arrivals, not the airport itself.
He added that Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations mandate that the airport cannot refuse to accept flights unless there is a safety concern.
Lisa Waring asked “why there seems to be absolutely no pushback on the airlines for scheduling so many flights.”
King responded, “We do push back on the airlines. I know the public doesn’t generally get to see it.” For instance, when Breeze and Avelo increased flights during the winter holidays this year (at one point reporting an average of 20,000 passengers per week, according to WFSB), King said that Avports pressed the airlines to decrease their activity.
“It just wasn’t sustainable,” he said. “That’s where you saw those huge lines. We do push back.”
“So in other words, there is the ability to push back against the airlines,” noted Waring. She asked King, “Do you think that the current volume of flights is sustainable?
“Yes, the current volumes are technically sustainable,” King responded. “There are federal regulations that prevent us from actually regulating those flight times.”
“OK, but does it stop you from pushing back on the volume?” countered Waring.
“We do push back when it is not a sustainable schedule,” said King.
“So what you’re saying is that it’s currently sustainable, technically,” Waring said. “So you believe it’s currently sustainable for the community?”
After some more back and forth, King posited that there are “two different kinds of sustainability.”
“For the community, it is very hard on the community,” King said. “That said, from an airport perspective, from a ramp perspective, it is a sustainable level of traffic.”
The heightened flight frequency over the holidays was “a genuine safety issue,” King added.
“Well, what about everything else?” countered Waring. “There’s also genuine concern from the community.”
“Well, that’s not something we can regulate,” responded King.
Meanwhile, Bassani brought up a voluntary agreement between Avports and Avelo Airlines stipulating that flights wouldn’t be scheduled to land after 11 p.m.
According to Bassani and other neighbors, late-night flights — and the potentially sleep-disrupting noise associated with them — have become too common an occurrence in the neighborhood.
According to King, any flights landing past 11 p.m. are doing so due to delays, often associated with weather conditions.
“We cannot restrict an airplane, particularly commercial aircraft, from taking off or landing at any time,” he said later in a phone interview.
An Avelo spokesperson referred the Independent to the airline’s flight schedule when asked for data on the frequency of these late-night delays. According to Avelo’s website, the airline was ranked #1 for on-time flights by the data company Anuvu last year, with an on-time flight rate of 83.9 percent. Breeze’s on-time rate, meanwhile, was 69.2 percent.
In response to neighbors’ accusations that the airlines are violating New Haven’s noise ordinance, which regulates loud noises in the city after 10 p.m., King pointed out that the ordinance makes an exception for airline activity. He noted that the airport signed an agreement with the city indicating that it would make an effort to limit noisy maintenance after 10 p.m., a goal that King said the airport almost never violates.
But when it comes to planes landing at 1 in the morning due to flight delays, King said, the city’s noise ordinance doesn’t regulate that activity. In other words, he said, “Tweed is actively following the noise ordinance even when flights come in late at night.”
The Environmental Stewardship Committee met on Zoom, to the chagrin of a few anti-Tweed advocates who had wanted to testify in person.