Residents sound off about jet noise

Starting last week, the amount of air traffic over Baldwin increased, at the direction of the Federal Aviation Administration. Whether or not the additional planes will create additional noise is now a matter of debate, but some Baldwin residents are worried that the racket will quickly become burdensome.

The new flights were directed over Nassau County in accordance with a new flight pattern designed by the FAA for New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia and implemented last week.

The route redesign, which went into effect at 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 19, requires westbound planes to initially head east, over Nassau County, and then north, over Westchester County, before finally taking their westerly heading. The previous plan, which had been in place since the 1960s, sent these flights directly west, over Robinsville, N.J.

The new flight patterns are the result of a decade-long FAA study called the New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia Metropolitan Area Airspace Redesign Project. The goal of the study was to use airspace more efficiently and reduce flight delays at five major airports: Newark Liberty International and Teterboro in New Jersey, John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia in New York, and Philadelphia International. According to the FAA, the new plan will add two routes of air traffic to the three that have long been in place.

“New York is the most complex and congested airspace in the world, and we have to use every bit of the airspace,” said Jim Peters, an FAA spokesman. “New York and Philadelphia have the most delayed airports in the country. We wanted to make the operation that we have in New York more efficient.”

Locally, the increase in flight traffic appears likely to exacerbate a problem many in the area already consider unacceptable. “The noise is astronomical,” said Jacqueline Bell of the Baldwin Civic Oaks Association. “You can’t sleep at night.”