This study examined the development and application of urban planning policies designed to provide for noise abatement in the vicinity of metropolitan area airports. The problem statement, study purpose, research questions, and conceptual definition of airport noise are presented in this chapter
The problem investigated is developed in a two-step presentation. The general environment within which the problem exists is described, and then the specific structure of the problem investigated is developed.
Legislation approved by Congress in November 1990 requires a phaseout of the use of noisy, older airplanes at airports in the United States by 2000 (Kandebo, 1992, p. 81). In the intervening time period, progressively more strict noise level restrictions will become effective on as step-by-step basis.
The federal government in the United States defines serious noise levels associated with aircraft as those situations where the annual average exceeds 65 decibels (The noise, 1988, p. 9). That noise level is somewhat louder than normal conversation (which is 60 decibels), and much quieter than the average household vacuum cleaner (which is 80 decibels). Federal law mandates that all aircraft operating within the United States and all airports in the country meet these standards by 2000 (Pilling, 1991, p. 17). Individual airlines are permitted to stretch this deadline by an additional three years, if hardship can be demonstrated.
The Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) is charged with the responsibility to develop rules for implementing the federal noise abatement legislation in the United States. The FAA desires uniform noise abatement procedures across the nation. In 1990, the municipalities and community groups around Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac), the airlines that operate at that airport, and the Port of Seattle (operator of the airport), with the cooperation of the local FAA office, developed a noise a...