Public Comment Period on Logan’s Parking Project to End Jan. 23

Activists and residents are scrambling to get their comment letters in before the Public Comment Period on Logan Airport’s parking project ends later this month. 

According to Massport the proposed parking project plans to add 5,000 new on-Airport commercial parking spaces in two phases at Logan. The project requires a lifting of a decades-old parking freeze at Logan by the state. 

In its filing Massport wrote, “The proposed project itself constitutes mitigation, designed to complement Massport’s other ground access strategies that aim to reduce the number of trips to and from the Airport, and reduce vehicle miles traveled and associated air emissions”. 

The public comment period for the project began on Dec. 23, 2019 and will conclude on Jan. 23, 2020. The project can be found on Massport’s website at www.massport.com/massport/about-massport/project-environmental-filings/. Written comments on the project can be sent to the MEPA Office or FAA on or before Jan.  23, 2020 at [email protected] or through the Energy & Environmental Affairs Public Comments Portal www.eeaonline.eea.state.ma.us/EEA/PublicComment/Landing. 

AIR, Inc., the Boston region’s longest serving community-based airport mitigation planning group already submitted a letter of opposition to this project and requested that Secretary Theoharides require Massport to produce a Supplemental Environmental Impact Report (EIR) which addresses the many serious flaws in reporting and analysis within the present EIR. 

“The EIR proposes that a more efficient, larger airport will create less pollution than a less efficient, larger airport,” wrote AIR, Inc. President Gail Miller. “The idea that the difference in additional negative impacts creates a benefit to environmental justice communities is ludicrous. Nowhere in the Logan Airport Parking Project EIR does (Massport) offer an option for the community to be polluted less; nor is the quantity of added pollution actually reported for the proposed project at expected operational capacity.”

Miller said the state should not approve the project until Massport reports on the parking project as a component of recent, current and future projects and provide analysis and discussion of project and associated cumulative environmental impacts.

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