Guest Editorial:
Commercial Aviation at Hanscom Field

The below first appeared on the Concord Discussion List in answer to a question posed by someone else: "Does anyone else not have a problem with the return of commercial aviation to Hanscom Field? Does anyone else feel that the return of commercial aviation to Hanscom Field is not a threat to Concord's Heritage (ie: Something that is passed down from previous generations)? Does anyone else feel that it is inappropriate to spend limited Town finances on a lawsuit against MassPort?"

I've watched the local uproar with a mix of humor and rage - humor that anyone would suggest this very modest (and by my standards almost imperceptible) increase in noise level is a burden. Rage that town residents might suggest we need to band together to "Preserve Concord's History". Do we thus imply that this history is more valuable, more important to preserve than that of other communities closer to Boston? Is what's happened here more important than what happened at Castle or Deer Island along the harbor? Or are we using that as a clever (though seemingly transparent) guise to suggest that we're really adopting a NIMBY position.

My bet is that many local residents depend upon the availability of good air transport to conduct their professional lives. Further, I'm willing to wager that a disproportionately large portion of this community hops on a plane at least once per year to head off to a vacation destination. I don't think the same can be said of the residents of East Boston, South Boston, Winthrop, and those areas immediately adjacent to Logan. Yet Concord is adopting a posture that we'll fight to the death to keep the noise, pollution, traffic etc. somewhere else.

So in answer to the query, do I feel it's inappropriate to spend limited town resources, from this corner a resounding "yes". Further, even if this lawsuit could be conducted for free, I would think it inappropriate to pursue, as I see all of us that benefit from the infrastructure of air travel have some responsibility to share it. What's going on here borders on a classist posturing that we're obliged to preserve our bucolic reserve and let the in-towners figure out how to deal with our increasing appetite for air travel. And I want no part of that position.


Text: ©1999 Jan McGinn.
Art: Design Reflections.