AIRPORTS, NOISE AND TOWN PLANNING

Airports and airways around airports have until now produced more and more noise affecting people living in the vicinity. In order to solve this problem, or at last relieve the disturbances, airports have been located further and further away from city centres, and aircraft movements around airports have been more and more restricted to narrow airways. I think this way is a cul-de-sac. You cannot go on forever producing more and more noise and moving airports further and further away. Neither can you abandon ever-larger built-up areas because the air traffic development makes them unsuitable for living. And certainly you cannot alter the human way of reacting to stress--what remains is to construct aircraft producing less noise. Around each airport there ought to be established a demarcation boundary outside which air traffic will not be allowed to cause more than clearly defined noise values. If these values wre exceeded, traffic has to be cut down or certain types of aircraft have to be prohibited. Airports are likely to have a noticeable effect on the physical structure of a region. Therefore, the location of airports should be determined as a function of the desired regional structure. The following principle for siing an airport can be derived from the experience with Arlanda. If one wants to (a) make the most of the sites with good communication possibilities near an airport; and (b) make full use of the communication system established between the city centre and the airport, the corridor between the two should be developed extensively. But to do so, it is imperative to restrict flight-noise disturbances in this corridor. The best way of achieving this seems to be by placing the runway directions at the airport perpendicular to the direction of the corridor.

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  • Corporate Authors:

    Academic Press Incorporated

    Berkeley Square House, Berkeley Square
    London W1,   England 
  • Authors:
    • Ahlberg, C F
  • Publication Date: 1975-11-22

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Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00155723
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Source Agency: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Aug 31 1977 12:00AM