A decade ago, Chelsea residents fighting runway expansion at Logan International Airport made a prediction: lifting the 27-year old injunction to construct Runway 14/32 would fail to resolve the airport’s chronic delays. Hindsight being 20/20, events have unfolded much as these residents foresaw. Last week, the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program released findings confirming their skepticism. Since Runway 14/32 opened last Thanksgiving, the runway has accomplished little or nothing to address Logan’s delay problem. Among city airports nationwide, Logan ranks 78 out of 89 for on-time take-off performance, with domestic arrivals running late 25 percent of the time—a situation worse than four years prior.
The irony is notable: Massport spokesman Matt Brelis recently cited Runway 14/32 and the contentious centerfield taxiway as construction initiatives undertaken to improve delay times at Logan. Neither has succeeded. The runway’s nearly decade-long history began when Suffolk Superior Court Judge Margot Botsford ruled in Massport’s favor, clearing the way for construction of a fifth, wind-restricted runway. Subsequently, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington dismissed as “merit less” the arguments by Communities Against Runway Expansion (CARE), an organization that included Chelsea community members, that the FAA had inadequately analyzed noise and air-quality impacts on neighboring communities. “The federal court basically said that the citizens complaints were not justified,” stated Bill Manning, CARE’s vice president, at that time. “This is a continuing sign that there is a governmental bias against communities trying to protect their quality of life.”
The FAA’s Final Environmental Impact Study (FEIS), derived from an independent firm’s analysis, led to 14/32’s 2002 approval. Yet CARE’s lawyer, Peter Koff, has long contended that the Mitre Corporation’s work compromised review objectivity and integrity, and that the FAA failed to properly select and oversee Mitre’s environmental impact analysis. Koff alleged that earlier Mitre drafts contained key language and harmful conclusions absent from the final version, suggesting Massport exercised editorial control. When obtained, the public discovered this hidden information, which Koff challenged as fabricated. Massport and the FAA responded that draft-to-draft language changes were routine, representing Mitre’s initial rather than final findings. “These delay concerns may undermine the economic justification of the new runway,” the report stated. “The magnitude of the overall delays seems too large, and consequently, the magnitude of the delay savings attributed to the new runway may be correspondingly overstated.” The final version instead read, “In summary, the magnitude of the overall delays seems too large, and consequently, the magnitude of the delay savings attributable to the new runway may be overstated. But nevertheless, the savings are still substantial under almost any reasonable long term traffic forecast.” This language proved decisive for 14/32’s approval, resting entirely on the premise that delay “savings are still substantial under almost any reasonable long term traffic forecast.” The recent Brookings study has thoroughly discredited this assertion and consequently the runway’s fundamental justification.