Los Altos Community Forum on Aircraft Noise of May 11, 2016

Los Altos city government convened a meeting in the Grant Community Center on the evening of Wednesday, May 11, 2016. See the agenda.

Presentations were made by representatives of three organizations that are members of Quiet Skies Mid-Peninsula:

The Quiet Skies Los Altos Hills presentation reviewed our "goal" to reduce aircraft ground noise and our "principles" by which we should evaluate candidate solutions. We also reviewed the seven most commonly-cited remedies that could be part of a solution, not just for the NorCal Metroplex, but all Metroplexes across the United State.

The consensus of the Quiet Skies Mid-Peninsula group is that we want the FAA to propose a solution that achieves our "goal", yet is consistent with our four "pinciples". These principles are:

    1. Abatement of aircraft noise must be prioritized above airline operational efficiency

    2. Noise must be measured by metrics relevant to state-of-the-art psychoacoustic research. The metrics used by the FAA, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, are not acceptable.

    3. Any process (e.g. NextGen) by which aircraft ground noise is modified should be transparent to resident affects. We are stakeholders.

    4. Any solution must be "neighborly". We do not advocate solutions that create sacrificial noise corridors or noise ghettos. We want a solution that works for all communities.