Introduction and Overview of Hanscom Field Issues

Current and Future Threats

This document is an introduction and overview of problems relating to the expansion of Hanscom Field Airport in the towns of Bedford, Concord, Lincoln, and Lexington, Massachusetts.  It has been prepared by Save Our Heritage.

Hanscom Field Background

Hanscom Field is the busiest general aviation airport in New England, and the second busiest in terms of total flight operations. Hanscom has approximately 218,000 operations per year, compared with 455,000 operations at Logan Airport. A very small fraction (less than 1%) of Hanscom operations are military flights from Hanscom Air Force Base.

Who is carrying their share of the load? (operations per year)

Hanscom Field was created in the 1940's by the Massachusetts legislature with money available to states under a federal airport program.  Its creation was controversial even then, passing the legislature by a single vote.

Besides the small Military use, Hanscom has been historically used for small propeller aircraft.  This began to change in the 1980s as corporate jets began to emerge as a significant aviation category.  Today, 12% of air traffic at Hanscom Field is corporate jet traffic, and this traffic is growing at an alarming 22% per year, much larger than the overall growth of corporate jet activity.  The growth of corporate jet activity creates a huge impact on the surrounding communities because corporate jets create as much noise, in general, as regular commercial jetliners.  

Chronological History of Hanscom Field:

Hanscom Field is in a unique location.  It is surrounded by historic and natural resources of local, state, and national significance.  View Map  Immediately adjacent to the airport are The Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge and the Minuteman National Historical Park.  Within the nearby flight paths of the airport are: Walden Pond and Walden Woods, the Concord river parts of the SUASCO watershed, Historic Lexington Green, Historic Downtown Concord, The North Bridge, Estabrook Woods Conservation Area, This historic homes of Emerson, Alcott, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, and many dozens of locations on the national register of historic places.  These resources cannot be shielded from airport impacts or relocated.  Together, these resources draw millions of tourists per year to Massachusetts and provide a major contribution to the Massachusetts economy.

The only ground access to Hanscom Field is via Rt. 2A (also known as the Battle Road).  This road goes right through the National Park and cannot be expanded or modified without the taking of National Park land.

The Hanscom communities view themselves as rural residential communities with a tremendous responsibility to care for and protect the special natural and historic resources located in their midst.  The communities have all expressed their positions on Hanscom Field through the town meeting process, in which each town adopted the same set of guiding principles as attached.  These votes were in each town unanimous.   In addition, a recent BankBoston  study indicates that the character and quality of life of communities like these are the primary driver of  location decisions of High Tech companies and are as a result a primary driver of the Massachusetts economy.

No economic analysis shows that the current or potential expansion of Hanscom Field is good for the local, State, or National economy.   The economic studies done by Massport indicate that the economic and job contribution to the state is equivalent to that of a small to medium sized software company.  The offsetting costs to the economy resulting from impact on tourism, High Tech company location, loss of natural resources, and property value reductions are completely disproportionate to the contribution.   By any measure, growing Hanscom Field is a very poor economic decision for the future.

Hanscom Current Situation

Hanscom is growing today at an alarming rate.  For many years there had been little expansion at Hanscom.  However, today there are three major Hangar construction projects underway, a new and larger FAA control tower is being built, taxiway improvements are underway, and jet traffic is growing at 22% per year.   The growth in this traffic is impacting the local communities significantly.    The local communities have tolerated this situation because in 1979 Massport issued a policy document called the Hanscom Field Master Plan which has for years stood as a policy agreement with the communities provides some level of protection against uncontrolled expansion.   The Master Plan states that Hanscom will grow essentially without limit as a General Aviation airport but will not be used for cargo or commercial airline traffic.

However, in a dramatic policy reversal, Massport has now decided to use Hanscom for commercial airline traffic.  In June 1999, Massport announced that a new carrier, Shuttle America, would commence commercial airline service at Hanscom in September.  This is clearly a violation of the Master Plan and of verbal promises that have been made to the communities over the past twenty years, including commitments made in the past few months.  Massport officials even have said they would like to keep their commitments to the communities, but cannot because of the FAA and because of their problems at Logan airport.  

Note: 2002 operations are estimated projecting from data up to May.  2003 operations estimated using announced plans of commercial carriers, and assuming less jet growth than 2002.

Massport has informed us that the FAA has told them that any commitments they have made to the local communities are invalid and they must open Hanscom to commercial air service.  Despite the fact that the FAA mission no longer includes airport expansion, there are groups established in the FAA whose purpose we have learned is "to crack open small airports for commercial activity".  When we have probed to understand whether the FAA considers issues of road access, traffic, impact on the environment or historic resources, the response we get from the FAA is "that's not our problem".    From this and other information, we believe that we have learned that: A) The FAA is controlled by aviation special interests, B) The FAA is operating outside of its mission, C) The FAA exerts power in support of aviation interests through implicit or explicit threats related to Federal Airport Improvement Program funding and Grant Assurances.  

Massport has community problems surrounding Logan Airport.  While the proposed Logan Airport expansion project could actually result in lower impact on the surrounding communities, the general consensus is that it will not be used this way and will in fact further burden the communities with noise and pollution.  The Logan communities, like the Hanscom communities, see a future of ever increasing impact and therefore a swell of anger and outrage is growing.   By overturning long term commitments to the Hanscom communities, Massport sends a signal to the Logan communities that they "play fair" and distribute deceit and suffering evenly.

Massport takes the position that current operations and future plans for Hanscom all have no impact on the surrounding communities or the natural and historic sites. Such claims are unfounded in science and contrary to common sense.

Hanscom Future

Hanscom does not have sufficient land area to become the second regional airport for Massachusetts.  Both Massport and the FAA admit this.  Therefore they have not proposed such use.    Massport has in the past admitted that Hanscom has poor ground access which also limits its expansion possibilities.    However, immediately adjacent to Hanscom Field is Hanscom Air Force Base.  This base consists of land and additional ground access options which could permit additional Hanscom Expansion.  In recent community meetings it became clear that the communities will accept almost any type of use of this land except having Massport get hold of it.  Therefore, if Hanscom AFB were to close, it would be critical that Massport not end up with this facility.  Although the addition of the AFB does not get Hanscom up to the land area which the FAA considers necessary for a major regional airport, it does bring it closer and places the communities at extreme risk.

The current annual growth rate of 22% of corporate jet traffic results in a  tremendous growth in impact on the surrounding communities.  The addition of commercial air service adds even further.  This growth is not acceptable to the communities and cannot be tolerated.  Because the citizens have been robbed of their rights to impact this growth at the local and state levels by federal pre-emption, it is only a matter of time before impacted  communities like the Logan and Hanscom communities identify the Federal government as the root source of their inability to plan their own future.

The future of the Hanscom communities and the unique historic, natural, and cultural resources they contain is in question.  A long term plan for the protection of these resources is needed, along with permanent protections to ensure the success of the plan.  This is a subject of Local, State, and National interest.

The Larger Regional Context

In New England, there are areas which do support aviation expansion.  In particular, Green Airport in Providence and Manchester Airport are both growing rapidly with majority support of the surrounding communities.  In Massachusetts, Worcester Airport has a large amount of local support and has underutilized passenger facilities.   And each of these airports has fewer aviation operations than Hanscom Field.   A regional plan should take into account regional needs and the desires of the surrounding communities.  However, Massport has made it clear that they don't want aviation activities to grow outside of their financial control.  This is not logical, but is a natural consequence of the design and operation of the Massport machine, which wants to grow and sees the development of aviation in other states as competition.  This despite the fact that Massachusetts is a heavy net importer of aviation travel departures, forcing many people to drive in to Boston from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut in order to use air travel services.  Sustaining Massachusetts as a heavy net importer of such traffic is not sound economic or environmental policy, particularly when Logan Airport and our roadways are overloaded already.

Almost 25% of Logan activities serve the New York area.  These connections are in many cases better served by high speed rail.  Yet Massport has no interest in connecting Logan Airport to high speed rail since it is a form of competition for Massport.  The support of surrounding airports in adjacent states and the introduction of high speed rail should be part of a regional transportation plan, which has been recommended by the EPA.

The Larger National Context

There are millions of US citizens impacted by airports.  The FAA accepts that there are millions of people impacted, but their definition of impacted is absurdly strict and omits the vast majority of people impacted.    Aviation interests understood that communities and states were beginning to focus on developing protections from the impact of aviation expansion, and put an end to this through the exaction of the Airport Capacity Act of 1990 which stripped the power to limit airport impact away from localities, states, and even airport operators.

There are anti-airport citizens groups around almost every significant airport in the USA.  Eventually, these groups will begin to work together on a national agenda.  To date, these groups have not been effectively organized vs the extremely organized and effective aviation interest groups, even though the numbers of impacted people are much larger than the numbers constituting aviation interests.  This is primarily because anti-airport groups are grassroots organizations and are disproportionately constituted of poor or minority people.  

In the case of threatened resources of National importance, the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act are intended to play a role which balances the tremendous power of the FAA, at least in the cases where the FAA is involved with airport development.  However, the FAA has taken unilateral rulemaking actions which have exempted most airport development from these other federal laws.

The measurement and mitigation of airport noise is an area which National work is needed.  Today, the FAA has wrested control of airport noise from the EPA and has effectively blocked any development in the areas of understanding or mitigating airport noise.  This is a national scandal that is correctable at the national level.