This is just too much racket.
Queens residents are crying foul over the constant airplane noise from a flight path out of LaGuardia Airport dubbed the “Tennis Climb” — which goes right over Bayside and downtown Flushing and is making residents’ lives hell.
“We pay too many taxes to be completely bombarded with the noises of airplanes all day,” Mariah Lopez, 59, of Bayside, said of the plane noise, which can reach the same decibel level as a revving motorcycle, according to residents.
“During the day, it’s not so bad … but at night— boy oh boy — it’s ridiculous.”
City Council Member Vickie Paladino calls the deafening din a “noise assault” on the neighborhood and has introduced a council resolution asking the FAA to make a change.
“We’re here in 2024 and I’ve got a district that is just being overwhelmed with really intrusive noise constantly,” Paladino told The Post. “I know people who are highly affected, with anxiety, tinnitus – they go to bed with noise canceling headphones on, and sometimes they’re in their backyard with noise canceling headphones on … it affects everybody.”
The flight path was created years ago to prevent planes from flying over the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Park during the US Open tournament each summer — but was made a permanent path in 2012.
The subsequent noise increase has been a stroke of bad luck for residents in Flushing, Bayside and Whitestone, who say they are getting as much as 18 hours of noise a day when commercial jets from LaGaurdia are going overhead.
“We live our lives on a daily basis according to the FAA’s alarm clock,” Jena Lanzetta, the president of the Northwest Bayside Civic Association, wrote in an April letter to NYC Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.
“It came as quite a surprise when our quiet small neighborhood soundscape was shaken into chaotic and endless piercing noise,” Lanzetta wrote, adding the constant beratement has affected performance at work, children’s ability to learn at school and even exacerbated health issues like dementia and depression.
A 2018 study on the Tennis Climb conducted by by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and Queens Quiet Skies advocacy group found increased noise potentially poses serious health threats like cardiovascular disease and anxiety disorder.
“We sit in our homes year round with windows and doors shut, and unable to use our property outdoors,” Lanzetta added. “The noise is so deafening, conversation outside is unable to be heard by a person standing three feet away.”
The noise around LaGuardia Airport can go as high as 81 db — as loud as a lawnmower — according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s noise tracker. That’s well above the World Health Organization’s 70 decibel safety limit.
But Bayside resident Janet McEneaney previously told The Post the PA is underplaying the noise level — as a monitoring instrument in her neighbor’s backyard has detected up to 90 decibels, which is as loud as a motorcycle.
Bayside residents haven’t been able to get an accurate noise tracker reading in over a year, Lanzetta told The Post, as nobody has volunteered to have a large, clunky noise tracker in their backyard.
Sarah Jones, who grew up in Bayside, said she has dealt with the noise all her life:
“I would stop talking in a conversation, let the plane go by and then continue,” Jones, 48, told The Post. It was bearable, she said – until about a decade ago.
“It never used to be like this when I was growing up, but now it’s so loud,” Jones added.
Despite over a decade of appeals to local electeds, the FAA hasn’t adequately addressed residents’ concerns, Paladino told The Post.
“When I saw how important it was to my constituents, I said, ‘something needs to be done about this, because it’s serious,’” Paladino said. “They don’t take them seriously. They sit in on the meeting, they listen, but there’s never any positive change.”
In response to the resident’s complaints, the Port Authority said they have put sound proofing in about two dozen schools in the area, but did not address requests to change the “Tennis Climb.”
“We have taken several voluntary actions, including undertaking a comprehensive Part 150 study to evaluate airport noise levels, establishing an aircraft noise management office, collaborating with the FAA to voluntarily initiate a soundproofing program for schools in the vicinity,” they said.
The FAA also did not directly address calls for change the takeoff route, saying “The FAA is committed to meaningful dialogue with communities.”
A final report of a Final Noise Compatibility Program Study documenting noise around LaGuardia Airport was issued in 2022, with the Port Authority recommending a “fly quiet” program using newer and quieter aircrafts.
The agency also noted that several “voluntary actions” have been taken in response to local complaints, including the creation of an aircraft noise management office and a voluntary soundproofing program in collaboration with the FAA for nearby schools – but to Lanzetta, the root issue has yet to be addressed.
“No community should have to endure 18+ hours of unrelenting noise,” she wrote. “We are prevented from getting necessary sleep and are forced to live our lives on a daily basis according to the FAA’s alarm clock … a more equitable solution must be developed.”
