Letter to the Editor, August 25, 2017: To the Selectmen ~ Impact of Massport Runway Resurfacing on Bedford Residents

By Bob Dorer

Editor’s Note: Bob Dorer sent this message to the Bedford Selectmen and Town Manager Richard Reed on August 22, 2017

Thank you for hosting the second special meeting on the topic of the Massport Hanscom Field repaving project last night.   Given the need for you to adjourn to your normally scheduled meeting and the number of townspeople who are far more impacted than we are on Otis St (our impact is mostly just noise-related, although that is significant – planes and some very noisy machinery running throughout some nights) I decided to write rather than take up valuable time during the comment period.

Two points I would like to make relative to planning for any future Massport projects that may impact Bedford and its residents and businesses;

First, as a lesson learned I think we can, and should, hold Massport more accountable on the transparency of their planning and the reasoning behind it.  For starters, yes it might have been inconvenient to use roads other than Bedford’s for this project, but it is not inherently unsafe.  Logan Airport, which Massport would have to acknowledge is busier than Hanscom on most, if not all measures, just completed a major 10,000 foot runway repaving (4R, 22L) where trucks definitely had more operational challenges with ongoing air operations than any trucks entering via Rt 2A would have ever had, yet Massport, to their credit, figured out how to do it safely.   We all know nothing is risk-free but as one person pointed out last night running big trucks on narrow roads in front of residential houses with young kids is not risk-free either.  I think an honest risk analysis would show on-airport maneuvering of the trucks, just like Logan did, would have possibly been less risky, maybe more costly, but likely less risky than the alternative they chose.

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Second, clearly, communications broke down.  There is plenty of “blame” to go around, but that said, Massport has vast experience on working with large and diverse communities (East and South Boston to name just two) that are heavily impacted by Massport’s ongoing operations and the various, and significant, capital and he projects Massport must pursue to fulfill their charter.    If Massport were sincere with their efforts to keep Bedford involved they should have proactively recommended notifying everyone on the planned truck routes, not just those Bedford [residents] identified after a somewhat rushed decision-making process.   We should demand they help us and work in partnership, in this case by honestly applying their much bigger knowledge base on the real impacts to abutters and others to such projects.

I realize Massport is an independent authority in the Commonwealth with a significant amount of power and autonomy, but we could at least request they be more proactive and transparent in the future and apply their knowledge learned across their organization, not just Hansom operations, to their planning and engagement with Bedford and all the other Hanscom Field Advisory Towns as well.

Thanks for listening.

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