2019hindsight t1_j03a3ms wrote
Reply to comment by rygo796 in How Logan Airport almost destroyed East Boston — and how East Boston is still fighting back by MrLaffertyteeingoff
Hanscom airport is already owned by massport and is only like 6 miles from Boston.
navymmw t1_j049fpz wrote
Hanscom is far to small to even be close to a replacement for Logan. More runways, longer runways, more ramp space, and better access would be needed. Basically at that point they’d need to just re do the whole thing
winter_bluebird t1_j03p7i1 wrote
But Hanscom is a Delta airport to Logan’s Bravo. You’d have to triple it in size at least, at LEAST!, and reengineer that entire section of route 2 and the 95 exits. And never mind the actual Air Force base and Bedford neighborhoods to the north.
It’s not as easy as all that. Bravo airports require a lot of infrastructure.
BadRedditUsername t1_j03ghoq wrote
I’d imagine the value of Logan’s real estate + economic potential of Boston without height restrictions and noise pollution would more than cover the cost of extending the Red Line to Hanscom with an express track, and potentially a commuter rail ring route which stops there as well. Only problem being that Concord NIMBYs would never allow it.
navymmw t1_j049j4g wrote
Far more problems then just NIMBYS. Hanscom is far to small as it is it
Master_Dogs t1_j03xqjb wrote
The Minute Man even gives you a really awesome rail ROW to use. It's a lovely bikeway now and I'd hate to temporarily lose access during construction, but there's some really good potential to setup an alternative bikeway via Mass Ave (add protected bike lanes through Arlington and Lexington) as well as redo the entire bikeway after you complete the Red Line construction with a wider path, lights and better bike access/street crossings.
Psirocking t1_j045zst wrote
Trying to turn that back to rail would be the hardest NIMBY battle in history. Rail trails aren’t really made to create bike paths, they’re made to ensure trains don’t come back.
Master_Dogs t1_j06rjg2 wrote
> Trying to turn that back to rail would be the hardest NIMBY battle in history.
Yeah I didn't say it would be easy, and that's why I mentioned having an alternative bikeway via Mass Ave bike lanes. Some of which already exist but aren't protected.
> Rail trails aren’t really made to create bike paths, they’re made to ensure trains don’t come back.
No. They're meant to do a number of things:
- better utilize an underutilized public space. no different from putting a park on a town/city owned parking lot that isn't used fully.
- create cycling routes to provide an alternative commute/travel option. this can actually improve traffic in some cases (see this bloomberg article with examples of bike lanes in NYC)
- land bank the space so it can be reactivated a rail corridor later on. specifically in the case of the Minute Man the MBTA still owns the land and leases it to the towns which it passes through. the majority of rail trails I'm aware of do something similar, where the State leases the land on a long term basis (99 years or whatever) but adds a clause that they'll take it back if needed. the bike to the sea trail has this kind of setup as well.
In this case, with the MBTA owning the land it's just a matter of the State government having some balls and providing residents with alternative routes and improvements to please them. Ultimately if the State wants to, they can just bulldoze the path and throw down some rails. See this recent thread on how they did that with Logan, or how they almost did that with the Inner Belt and definitely did so with the Pike and 93.
winter_bluebird t1_j03pcmu wrote
Surprise! Hanscom is definitely not in Concord.
BadRedditUsername t1_j03sh6d wrote
Surprise! Parts of it definitely are, not to mention the approach paths. https://i.imgur.com/BY0MVsE.jpg
winter_bluebird t1_j03ugvl wrote
You’re right! I forgot we have a corner of a runway. I live in Concord directly under the one of the current approach path, yeah. My husband is a pilot out of Hanscom.
There is no way that a red line expansion to Hanscom (hah) would be blocked by Concord NIMBYs, since it wouldn’t touch Concord in any way. It’s Arlington, Lexington, and Bedford that you’d have to deal with first.
I would happily take the red line all the way from Concord, by the way.
And you’d have to knock down like four Bedford neighborhoods and the entire HAFB if you wanted to ever turn Hanscom into a Bravo airport.
navymmw t1_j049tmj wrote
Yup, they’d basically have to tear it all down and start from scratch to get that area even close to being a class bravo airport
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