In our last episode (A-Weighted), we talked about just one of the ways noise is misrepresented to the public. Even the way it is measured misleads decision makers (and the public) as to how bad it is–using a system that depicts flights only a few hundred feet from the runway with the same numbers as routine yard work tasks.
This time we talk about a related topic, something that will sting: the main reason we keep losing. Airport communities have never really agreed on what winning means–unless it can be defined as “making the airplanes go somewhere else.”
Why have improper noise measurements gone unchanged in 50 years? The same reason air quality monitoring has languished. A lack of interest in anything beyond some current crisis.
Even kids playing sports beyond an introductory level are taught that winning matters. Participation is great, but team success is even better–even if it takes time to get there. People don’t play team sports very long without that drive for shared success. That includes coaching and a willingness to change both strategies and tactics to get there over time.
Another airport myth, as powerful as ‘second airport’, is the lie that community engagement is the key to success. That theory has been tested over and over–including during the Third Runway–at the cost of millions of dollars. Apart from the regular stream of weak legal challenges to flight paths, the net result of misplaced faith in ‘community engagement’ has only made everyone cynical about making any useful progress.
Why do these myths persist? Very few people ever become truly engaged in any airport advocacy.
The awkward discussion is that people are encouraged to confuse participation with effective strategy. In this game? Everyone’s a winner simply by virtue of showing up.
With those perverse incentives, people can spend any amount of time re-inventing the wheel: re-learning things already known, attempting to build community support that is, in fact, unnecessary. And be rewarded for both.
As so many politicians will tell you, “People just want to feel heard.” Is that how you really feel? If so, you can definitely get that. Better listening sessions.
When people are encouraged to define empathy and trying as the measures of success, real success on such technical issues will always remain out of reach.
Our home page states that the SAMP will lead to at least a third more operations. We became confident of that the moment we started looking at data from 1996. It’s obvious if one takes the Airport Director’s Dad Joke seriously.
“An airport is an ongoing construction project where passengers and airplanes are constantly getting in the way.”
Our airport communities have never taken that seriously. Instead, everyone treats airports like one-off construction projects and never look at that one word: ongoing. They never really end.
The SAMP began in 2012, four years after the Third Runway opened. Imagine building a freeway and then four years later telling residents that yet another freeway needed to be built in the same spot.
If an issue requires ongoing management, but only ever gets looked at one project at a time, something is deeply wrong, not just with the game, but with the fact that people keep playing it using the same losing strategies and tactics.
But there’s nothing stopping anyone from adopting a better approach. Even kids playing sports know that. They want to win more than just participate.
To learn how you can make a difference, read our STNI: 2026 Legislative Agenda and
