Transportation
Airport Communities Make a Plea for Quieter Skies
As Congress debates the FAA’s future, neighborhoods in the flight path say they need relief from all the noise.
Every time a plane flies over Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, María Batayola pauses what she’s saying and lifts a finger as she waits for it to pass. This happens every few minutes, and the noise doesn’t just interrupt conversations, she says: It distracts people at work and school, and disturbs their sleep.
“I remember waking up in the middle of the night and saying, ‘Is there a war?’” she recalls.