"Logan's plans fuel discontent"

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Airport's plans fuel discontent
Parking measures spur traffic concerns
By Christine MacDonald
The Boston (MA) Globe


For much of his 76 years, Eastie native Hugo Ascolillo watched as a small
municipal airfield grew into the bustling Logan International Airport,
changes he said came ''all at the expense of our neighborhood."
  
So Ascolillo was not pleased to learn of plans to add a ninth rental car
company to airport property on the edge of his Jeffries Point section of the
neighborhood. Even without the addition of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Ascolillo
said traffic outside his Maverick Street home has increased ''probably
tenfold" in recent years because of airport workers who use the street as a
shortcut.

''I find more people employed by the airport driving through my
neighborhood, including courtesy buses for rent-a-car companies," Ascolillo
said last Monday night at a meeting of the Jeffries Point Neighborhood
Association. Ascolillo worries the traffic endangers pedestrians,
particularly children who play in the area.

The proposed rental franchise is one of two airport plans drawing fire from
East Boston activists and other critics of the Massachusetts Port Authority,
which runs the airport. Besides adding Enterprise to the rental car area on
the south side of the airport, Massport is seeking state permission to build
an economy parking lot on the northern end of Logan.

Port authority officials say both moves would provide more options to
airport users. Critics say they will exacerbate traffic and air pollution in
the surrounding residential neighborhood.

Massport plans to reduce the Alamo rental car operation by nearly a third to
make way for Enterprise in the Southwest Service Area.

The port authority served Alamo eviction papers March 4, ordering the
Tulsa-based company to vacate 56,000 square feet of airport property,
according to Massport spokeswoman Danny Levy.

Levy said the reconfiguration would not expand the 1-million-square-foot
area used by rental agencies or increase the number of cars and traffic at
the airport.

Alamo, however, maintains that ''squeezing" another rental operation into
the service area will lead to more cars and vehicle trips as
space-limitations prompt both companies to shift routine maintenance to
locations outside the airport.

''Our estimate is an increase of 2,000 trips per day," an Alamo
representative said. The company is calling on city and state environmental
officials to require a lengthy environmental review to evaluate the impact.

Levy characterized Alamo's stance as sour grapes. Alamo's share of the
airport's rental market has shrunk in recent years as Enterprise has
expanded nationwide, prompting Massport to allocate more space to the
company, Levy said.

An Enterprise spokeswoman, Christy Conrad, said that while the company's bid
to expand at Logan is part of its national expansion, a deal had not yet
been reached.

''We are in negotiations with Massport," Conrad said. ''We would love to
move onto the airport, but there is no agreement yet."

Massport has also applied to the state Department of Environmental
Protection for a permit to build a parking lot in the airport's North
Service Area.

The Logan International Airport Economy Parking Consolidation Project would
add about 1,200 parking spaces and consolidate an additional 550 spots in
two other airport lots.

Among critics of the parking lot plans is state Representative Anthony W.
Petruccelli, who is calling on Massport to pay for a long-awaited bypass
road to keep airport traffic off congested streets in the Day Square area of
East Boston.

Massport estimates the new parking lot will double the number of vehicle
trips per day to more than 1,000, according to the Environmental
Notification Form it has filed with the Department of Environmental
Protection.

Petruccelli has accused Massport of trying to hustle the parking lot
proposal through the permitting process with little notice to neighborhood
residents. He wants Massport to fund a longstanding plan to build a road to
bypass the neighborhood. Petruccelli began calling on Massport to pay for
the roadway after controversy erupted over the parking lot plans in January.

''This is a glaring environmental impact to our neighborhood," Petruccelli
said. Massport officials ''should be on the hook for it because if the
airport wasn't there, we wouldn't need an airport bypass road."

Neighborhood residents are also concerned about the possibility of more
traffic and pollution, according to Eastie activist Mary Ellen Welch.

As of last week, the state's Executive Office of Environmental Affairs had
no plans to require the environmental review for the Enterprise proposal.
Residents have until April 23 to send state officials comments on the
parking consolidation plan.


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