Objections aired to garage plan
Residents cite pollution, noise
Massport planning officials appeared before a crowd of more than 60 East Boston residents and a clutch of local politicians last week to discuss what they say are changes made in response to neighborhood outcry over a $455 million parking structure slated to open at Logan Airport in late 2012.
Massport plans to build a five-story parking garage with more than 9,000 spaces to house rental cars and commercial parking on 49 acres in what is known as the southwest service area. The area abuts Maverick, Gove, and Cottage streets in East Boston's Jeffries Point.
Project manager Craig Leiner said the garage will consolidate the activities of seven rental car companies, as well as taxis, buses, and limousines, that now dot Route 1A and Harborside Drive. The garage project, known as CONRAC (short for consolidated rental car facility), would be built in two phases, the first stage with about 5,788 spaces to open by the end of 2012. The second phase would open by 2017 or later, depending on whether the rental car companies need the additional spaces, he said.
Resident Mary Ellen Welch, a longtime airport critic, said East Boston is already overwhelmed by air and noise pollution from Logan and that adding another massive structure like a parking garage so close to thickly settled residential areas is unfair and poses future health risks.
"It's massive," said Welch, who chaired the meeting at the Jeffries Point Yacht Club on Monday night. "They shouldn't have it there. It's too close to people." She said the plans are largely the same as those unveiled last fall and will make little difference to people living near the new facility.
Last November, amid some controversy, Massport awarded a $30 million contract to Parsons Brinckerhoff to design and oversee construction of the garage project. Parsons Brinckerhoff was among a handful of companies that paid the state a $458 million settlement in January 2008 over mishandling of Big Dig construction that resulted in the 2006 death of motorist Milena Del Valle, who was killed by falling concrete in the Ted Williams tunnel. The firm admitted no responsibility for the accident.
State Senator Anthony Petruccelli, state Representative Carlo Basile, Councilors at Large John R. Connolly, Stephen J. Murphy, and Sam Yoon, as well as District Councilor Salvatore LaMattina attended last week's meeting and most expressed support for the neighborhood's position.
Residents want the garage broken up into several smaller buildings and placed on other airport parcels away from homes, said Welch. If that's not possible - as Leiner said because of a shortage of available space - then fully enclosing the garage and filtering the air inside to reduce the amount of particulates sent into the atmosphere would go a long way toward easing residents' worries, she said.
The plans do consider installing two walls to the garage, but an air filtration system like those on Big Dig tunnels is unnecessary since parked vehicles would emit far fewer fumes than those being driven in a tunnel, said Lowell Richards, Massport's chief development officer.
Responding to complaints about the increased number of vehicles concentrated in the new structure, Leiner said an environmental review now being finalized shows that several key operational changes in the works will reduce total emissions from 2007 levels, while carbon dioxide and particulate emissions will remain below federal standards.
Diesel-powered rental car shuttle buses would be replaced by hybrid and other clean-fuel vehicles; the number of largely empty buses circulating through the airport, which during peak periods now reaches up to 90 per hour, would be cut to about 50 per hour; and bus routes would be cut down to a maximum of four, said Leiner.
They'll also work on giving incentives to rental car companies to include a higher percentage of hybrid vehicles in their fleets, said Richards.
At the urging of several residents, Massport will look at moving a taxi waiting area away from Memorial Stadium park after some said they were concerned that idling cabs would expose children playing ball there to excessive fumes, said Richards.
Massport will submit the final environmental review to the state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs next month, said spokesman Richard Walsh. The public will then have between 45 and 60 days to file comments on the review.
Welch said residents will use that time to urge local political leaders to put pressure on James A. Aloisi Jr. the state's new secretary of transportation, to get the project scuttled or have it substantially redesigned.
"Our neighborhood is already impacted by all the other workings of the airport," said Welch. "This is the one last thing they're trying to put on the neighborhood."
