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Boston Globe
03-08-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Canada fixed its air traffic control decades ago. Why can't America?
Some of these tragedies and alarming incidents are Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up There is no mystery about what ails air traffic control in this country: It is run by the government, which is ill-suited to the task. Worse yet, the agency that's in charge of providing air traffic control, the Federal Aviation Administration, is also the agency that regulates it — an inherent conflict of interest. As journalist John Tierney put it in Advertisement That's only part of the problem. Because the FAA is an arm of the government, its operations, including air traffic control, are inevitably politicized. Since the agency has to be reauthorized annually, its funding is tied not to market forces but to the priorities of politicians, lobbyists, and interest groups. That chronic Happily, there is a straightforward solution: Get the federal government out of the air traffic control business. 'Countless studies have shown that other countries' ATC systems are better-managed, better-funded, and better-supplied with advanced technology,' Robert Poole, the Reason Foundation's director of transportation policy, Advertisement Not much has changed since Our neighbor to the north long ago made the leap to nongovernmental air traffic control. In 1996, Canada created Nav Canada, a not-for-profit corporation that is fully funded by users of the system — that is, airlines and other aircraft operators — and thus doesn't cost taxpayers a cent. The results have been almost uniformly positive. Nav Canada funds its own modernization and operates on a solid financial footing. The company has Canada boasts state-of-the-art satellite navigation systems. Almost 10 years ago, The Wall Street Journal's aviation columnist, Scott McCartney, In Canadian ATC towers, there are no strips of paper to shuffle. Instead, controllers update information about each flight on touch screens and pass the information to one another electronically. 'Requests for altitude changes are automatically checked for conflicts before they even pop up on controllers' screens,' McCartney wrote. 'Computers look 20 minutes ahead for any planes potentially getting too close to each other. Flights are monitored by a system more accurate than radar, allowing them to be safely spaced closer together to add capacity and reduce delays.' Advertisement The FAA, meanwhile, has been working on upgrading its technology for more than 20 years, but its efforts, as the trade group Airlines for America America's antiquated air traffic control system is both embarrassing and unnecessary. The wheel doesn't need to be reinvented. In 2017, legislation to privatize ATC operations along the lines of the Canadian model This would be a fine time to revive that legislation. Is it naive to imagine that fixing air traffic control is one way to 'make America great again' that doesn't have to involve polarizing rhetoric or angry culture wars? The formula is clear: Carve air traffic control out of the FAA, move it to an independent, user-funded corporation, and let market needs — not politics — dictate priorities. Under such a 'separation of ATC and state,' safety oversight would remain with the FAA, but the era of paper strips and floppy disks would finally end. Advertisement Jeff Jacoby can be reached at
The Advertiser
01-08-2025
- Business
- The Advertiser
A park in Honeysuckle? Newcastle can do so much better
The idea is appealing, but it would be a colossal mistake. The harbourfront redevelopment site next to Newcastle Interchange should not become a park. The site is earmarked as the grand finale of the Honeysuckle development, to be called Honeysuckle Quays, or HQ. If the state government doesn't stuff up the project, we will get the spectacle of a tall city centre rising beside the water - smaller than but visually similar to such marvels as Sydney, Hong Kong and New York. Using the land as a park, on the other hand, would be a sound way of confirming our condition as good ol' country-town Newcastle. Herald letter writer Denis Hainsworth proposed the idea of a park on the site a month ago. "Instead of a high-rise, wouldn't it be fantastic to have a large park that would provide much-needed green space in this part of the city?" he wrote. And my fellow Herald columnist John Tierney took up the cause in an article on Tuesday, saying that the land could "provide critically needed open green space for the series of tower apartment buildings, some over 20 storeys, that have been built or are now under construction on nearby land in Newcastle West." Yes, the idea is appealing. But putting a park anywhere is always appealing. Show me a site in Newcastle where people would disagree with the statement "Wouldn't it be nice to have a park here." No one ever challenges a statement that a park is "needed". But the area that we set aside for parks is always a matter of balance. And not even inner-city Newcastle is in danger of under-doing that balance. The new core of the city centre is rising around the interchange. The most intense part will be from Tudor Street to Bank Corner; it's intended to extend towards the harbour through the HQ site. All this is as close as 150 metres from enormous National Park, 23 hectares of green space, about as big as 400 suburban residential lots. Just 600 metres west of the interchange is splendid Wickham Park, which is cut off from the city now but should become accessible as redevelopment proceeds. The harbour itself offers open space. We can't walk on it, but we can walk beside it under trees that have hardly begun to grow. No one living or working around the new city centre will feel a lack of open space. As John Tierney says, we should have had more open space along the harbourfront. But the state government, working with Newcastle council, has stuffed up Honeysuckle good and proper with the damnable concrete canyon and by failing to adequately connect the redevelopment zone with Hunter Street. Now we must not fail to make the best use of the Honeysuckle land that we have left: HQ. It must be a site for buildings because it would connect the new city-centre core with the water, making it much more alluring to go into town. In attracting people, it should breathe more life into the rest of Honeysuckle. HQ is right next to the interchange. We must maximise the use of our central railway station with its integrated tramline and bus terminal. Apartment buildings, hotels, offices and shops would do that. A park wouldn't. In extending development to the water, HQ will at last provide a bit of depth to our inconveniently skinny city centre, which has always imposed long walking distances. HQ will also offer a visual spectacle - not just for us to admire but for outsiders to notice, letting them know that, actually, we're not another country town in "regional Australia". Its effect on our national image should be enormous. That would attract more investment and jobs. This aspect of HQ must not be underestimated. And we cannot achieve the same effect anywhere else on the harbour, because this is the last site. Now, there are two little opportunities for enlarging inner-city park space near the interchange that we should seize - not because we really need to, but because we can. When King Street was extended through poor old Birdwood Park in 1973, we were left with two fragments of open space that are barely more than traffic islands. On their north sides is King Street, and on the south sides each has a road that we could abolish. We'd greatly improve the little parks by adding the widths of those roads to them. The roads aren't needed because the adjoining sites, including the western part of Marketown, also front Parry Street. One of these fragmentary parks is called Little Birdwood Park, a good name that we should keep. The other is merely the "King Street Reserve", a name that we can improve on. In the 19th century, the AA Company's rail line to its coal mines at Hamilton, including the Borehole No.1 and No.2 pits, passed along what is now the King Street Reserve. In his book Coal, Railways and Mines, the historian Brian Robert Andrews reprints this report from the Maitland Mercury of 28 March 1857, when horses still hauled the trains: "A melancholy accident occurred to a boy named Joseph Newman, about 12 years of age, employed on the Borehole road [rail line], on Saturday last. It appears his regular employment was to take out a spare horse about half a mile on the road to meet the loaded trains, and that he then used to ride in on the waggons. On the day in question he had got on the waggons as usual, but it appears he got off again and went for a drink in a house close by. The driver soon after missed him, and looking back saw his body lying along the road." Little Joseph Newman, horribly injured, appears to have slipped and fallen under a train. Let's enlarge the King Street Reserve and call it Newman Park. The idea is appealing, but it would be a colossal mistake. The harbourfront redevelopment site next to Newcastle Interchange should not become a park. The site is earmarked as the grand finale of the Honeysuckle development, to be called Honeysuckle Quays, or HQ. If the state government doesn't stuff up the project, we will get the spectacle of a tall city centre rising beside the water - smaller than but visually similar to such marvels as Sydney, Hong Kong and New York. Using the land as a park, on the other hand, would be a sound way of confirming our condition as good ol' country-town Newcastle. Herald letter writer Denis Hainsworth proposed the idea of a park on the site a month ago. "Instead of a high-rise, wouldn't it be fantastic to have a large park that would provide much-needed green space in this part of the city?" he wrote. And my fellow Herald columnist John Tierney took up the cause in an article on Tuesday, saying that the land could "provide critically needed open green space for the series of tower apartment buildings, some over 20 storeys, that have been built or are now under construction on nearby land in Newcastle West." Yes, the idea is appealing. But putting a park anywhere is always appealing. Show me a site in Newcastle where people would disagree with the statement "Wouldn't it be nice to have a park here." No one ever challenges a statement that a park is "needed". But the area that we set aside for parks is always a matter of balance. And not even inner-city Newcastle is in danger of under-doing that balance. The new core of the city centre is rising around the interchange. The most intense part will be from Tudor Street to Bank Corner; it's intended to extend towards the harbour through the HQ site. All this is as close as 150 metres from enormous National Park, 23 hectares of green space, about as big as 400 suburban residential lots. Just 600 metres west of the interchange is splendid Wickham Park, which is cut off from the city now but should become accessible as redevelopment proceeds. The harbour itself offers open space. We can't walk on it, but we can walk beside it under trees that have hardly begun to grow. No one living or working around the new city centre will feel a lack of open space. As John Tierney says, we should have had more open space along the harbourfront. But the state government, working with Newcastle council, has stuffed up Honeysuckle good and proper with the damnable concrete canyon and by failing to adequately connect the redevelopment zone with Hunter Street. Now we must not fail to make the best use of the Honeysuckle land that we have left: HQ. It must be a site for buildings because it would connect the new city-centre core with the water, making it much more alluring to go into town. In attracting people, it should breathe more life into the rest of Honeysuckle. HQ is right next to the interchange. We must maximise the use of our central railway station with its integrated tramline and bus terminal. Apartment buildings, hotels, offices and shops would do that. A park wouldn't. In extending development to the water, HQ will at last provide a bit of depth to our inconveniently skinny city centre, which has always imposed long walking distances. HQ will also offer a visual spectacle - not just for us to admire but for outsiders to notice, letting them know that, actually, we're not another country town in "regional Australia". Its effect on our national image should be enormous. That would attract more investment and jobs. This aspect of HQ must not be underestimated. And we cannot achieve the same effect anywhere else on the harbour, because this is the last site. Now, there are two little opportunities for enlarging inner-city park space near the interchange that we should seize - not because we really need to, but because we can. When King Street was extended through poor old Birdwood Park in 1973, we were left with two fragments of open space that are barely more than traffic islands. On their north sides is King Street, and on the south sides each has a road that we could abolish. We'd greatly improve the little parks by adding the widths of those roads to them. The roads aren't needed because the adjoining sites, including the western part of Marketown, also front Parry Street. One of these fragmentary parks is called Little Birdwood Park, a good name that we should keep. The other is merely the "King Street Reserve", a name that we can improve on. In the 19th century, the AA Company's rail line to its coal mines at Hamilton, including the Borehole No.1 and No.2 pits, passed along what is now the King Street Reserve. In his book Coal, Railways and Mines, the historian Brian Robert Andrews reprints this report from the Maitland Mercury of 28 March 1857, when horses still hauled the trains: "A melancholy accident occurred to a boy named Joseph Newman, about 12 years of age, employed on the Borehole road [rail line], on Saturday last. It appears his regular employment was to take out a spare horse about half a mile on the road to meet the loaded trains, and that he then used to ride in on the waggons. On the day in question he had got on the waggons as usual, but it appears he got off again and went for a drink in a house close by. The driver soon after missed him, and looking back saw his body lying along the road." Little Joseph Newman, horribly injured, appears to have slipped and fallen under a train. Let's enlarge the King Street Reserve and call it Newman Park. The idea is appealing, but it would be a colossal mistake. The harbourfront redevelopment site next to Newcastle Interchange should not become a park. The site is earmarked as the grand finale of the Honeysuckle development, to be called Honeysuckle Quays, or HQ. If the state government doesn't stuff up the project, we will get the spectacle of a tall city centre rising beside the water - smaller than but visually similar to such marvels as Sydney, Hong Kong and New York. Using the land as a park, on the other hand, would be a sound way of confirming our condition as good ol' country-town Newcastle. Herald letter writer Denis Hainsworth proposed the idea of a park on the site a month ago. "Instead of a high-rise, wouldn't it be fantastic to have a large park that would provide much-needed green space in this part of the city?" he wrote. And my fellow Herald columnist John Tierney took up the cause in an article on Tuesday, saying that the land could "provide critically needed open green space for the series of tower apartment buildings, some over 20 storeys, that have been built or are now under construction on nearby land in Newcastle West." Yes, the idea is appealing. But putting a park anywhere is always appealing. Show me a site in Newcastle where people would disagree with the statement "Wouldn't it be nice to have a park here." No one ever challenges a statement that a park is "needed". But the area that we set aside for parks is always a matter of balance. And not even inner-city Newcastle is in danger of under-doing that balance. The new core of the city centre is rising around the interchange. The most intense part will be from Tudor Street to Bank Corner; it's intended to extend towards the harbour through the HQ site. All this is as close as 150 metres from enormous National Park, 23 hectares of green space, about as big as 400 suburban residential lots. Just 600 metres west of the interchange is splendid Wickham Park, which is cut off from the city now but should become accessible as redevelopment proceeds. The harbour itself offers open space. We can't walk on it, but we can walk beside it under trees that have hardly begun to grow. No one living or working around the new city centre will feel a lack of open space. As John Tierney says, we should have had more open space along the harbourfront. But the state government, working with Newcastle council, has stuffed up Honeysuckle good and proper with the damnable concrete canyon and by failing to adequately connect the redevelopment zone with Hunter Street. Now we must not fail to make the best use of the Honeysuckle land that we have left: HQ. It must be a site for buildings because it would connect the new city-centre core with the water, making it much more alluring to go into town. In attracting people, it should breathe more life into the rest of Honeysuckle. HQ is right next to the interchange. We must maximise the use of our central railway station with its integrated tramline and bus terminal. Apartment buildings, hotels, offices and shops would do that. A park wouldn't. In extending development to the water, HQ will at last provide a bit of depth to our inconveniently skinny city centre, which has always imposed long walking distances. HQ will also offer a visual spectacle - not just for us to admire but for outsiders to notice, letting them know that, actually, we're not another country town in "regional Australia". Its effect on our national image should be enormous. That would attract more investment and jobs. This aspect of HQ must not be underestimated. And we cannot achieve the same effect anywhere else on the harbour, because this is the last site. Now, there are two little opportunities for enlarging inner-city park space near the interchange that we should seize - not because we really need to, but because we can. When King Street was extended through poor old Birdwood Park in 1973, we were left with two fragments of open space that are barely more than traffic islands. On their north sides is King Street, and on the south sides each has a road that we could abolish. We'd greatly improve the little parks by adding the widths of those roads to them. The roads aren't needed because the adjoining sites, including the western part of Marketown, also front Parry Street. One of these fragmentary parks is called Little Birdwood Park, a good name that we should keep. The other is merely the "King Street Reserve", a name that we can improve on. In the 19th century, the AA Company's rail line to its coal mines at Hamilton, including the Borehole No.1 and No.2 pits, passed along what is now the King Street Reserve. In his book Coal, Railways and Mines, the historian Brian Robert Andrews reprints this report from the Maitland Mercury of 28 March 1857, when horses still hauled the trains: "A melancholy accident occurred to a boy named Joseph Newman, about 12 years of age, employed on the Borehole road [rail line], on Saturday last. It appears his regular employment was to take out a spare horse about half a mile on the road to meet the loaded trains, and that he then used to ride in on the waggons. On the day in question he had got on the waggons as usual, but it appears he got off again and went for a drink in a house close by. The driver soon after missed him, and looking back saw his body lying along the road." Little Joseph Newman, horribly injured, appears to have slipped and fallen under a train. Let's enlarge the King Street Reserve and call it Newman Park. The idea is appealing, but it would be a colossal mistake. The harbourfront redevelopment site next to Newcastle Interchange should not become a park. The site is earmarked as the grand finale of the Honeysuckle development, to be called Honeysuckle Quays, or HQ. If the state government doesn't stuff up the project, we will get the spectacle of a tall city centre rising beside the water - smaller than but visually similar to such marvels as Sydney, Hong Kong and New York. Using the land as a park, on the other hand, would be a sound way of confirming our condition as good ol' country-town Newcastle. Herald letter writer Denis Hainsworth proposed the idea of a park on the site a month ago. "Instead of a high-rise, wouldn't it be fantastic to have a large park that would provide much-needed green space in this part of the city?" he wrote. And my fellow Herald columnist John Tierney took up the cause in an article on Tuesday, saying that the land could "provide critically needed open green space for the series of tower apartment buildings, some over 20 storeys, that have been built or are now under construction on nearby land in Newcastle West." Yes, the idea is appealing. But putting a park anywhere is always appealing. Show me a site in Newcastle where people would disagree with the statement "Wouldn't it be nice to have a park here." No one ever challenges a statement that a park is "needed". But the area that we set aside for parks is always a matter of balance. And not even inner-city Newcastle is in danger of under-doing that balance. The new core of the city centre is rising around the interchange. The most intense part will be from Tudor Street to Bank Corner; it's intended to extend towards the harbour through the HQ site. All this is as close as 150 metres from enormous National Park, 23 hectares of green space, about as big as 400 suburban residential lots. Just 600 metres west of the interchange is splendid Wickham Park, which is cut off from the city now but should become accessible as redevelopment proceeds. The harbour itself offers open space. We can't walk on it, but we can walk beside it under trees that have hardly begun to grow. No one living or working around the new city centre will feel a lack of open space. As John Tierney says, we should have had more open space along the harbourfront. But the state government, working with Newcastle council, has stuffed up Honeysuckle good and proper with the damnable concrete canyon and by failing to adequately connect the redevelopment zone with Hunter Street. Now we must not fail to make the best use of the Honeysuckle land that we have left: HQ. It must be a site for buildings because it would connect the new city-centre core with the water, making it much more alluring to go into town. In attracting people, it should breathe more life into the rest of Honeysuckle. HQ is right next to the interchange. We must maximise the use of our central railway station with its integrated tramline and bus terminal. Apartment buildings, hotels, offices and shops would do that. A park wouldn't. In extending development to the water, HQ will at last provide a bit of depth to our inconveniently skinny city centre, which has always imposed long walking distances. HQ will also offer a visual spectacle - not just for us to admire but for outsiders to notice, letting them know that, actually, we're not another country town in "regional Australia". Its effect on our national image should be enormous. That would attract more investment and jobs. This aspect of HQ must not be underestimated. And we cannot achieve the same effect anywhere else on the harbour, because this is the last site. Now, there are two little opportunities for enlarging inner-city park space near the interchange that we should seize - not because we really need to, but because we can. When King Street was extended through poor old Birdwood Park in 1973, we were left with two fragments of open space that are barely more than traffic islands. On their north sides is King Street, and on the south sides each has a road that we could abolish. We'd greatly improve the little parks by adding the widths of those roads to them. The roads aren't needed because the adjoining sites, including the western part of Marketown, also front Parry Street. One of these fragmentary parks is called Little Birdwood Park, a good name that we should keep. The other is merely the "King Street Reserve", a name that we can improve on. In the 19th century, the AA Company's rail line to its coal mines at Hamilton, including the Borehole No.1 and No.2 pits, passed along what is now the King Street Reserve. In his book Coal, Railways and Mines, the historian Brian Robert Andrews reprints this report from the Maitland Mercury of 28 March 1857, when horses still hauled the trains: "A melancholy accident occurred to a boy named Joseph Newman, about 12 years of age, employed on the Borehole road [rail line], on Saturday last. It appears his regular employment was to take out a spare horse about half a mile on the road to meet the loaded trains, and that he then used to ride in on the waggons. On the day in question he had got on the waggons as usual, but it appears he got off again and went for a drink in a house close by. The driver soon after missed him, and looking back saw his body lying along the road." Little Joseph Newman, horribly injured, appears to have slipped and fallen under a train. Let's enlarge the King Street Reserve and call it Newman Park.
Irish Independent
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
Animals rights group want protection of foxes after ‘grotesque act of cruelty'
Gardaí are still investigating an incident of animal cruelty which has led to outrage among the public over the chilling nature of the cruelty involved. The AOHS called it a grotesque act of cruelty that is testament to the abject failure of current Irish wildlife legislation to protect native animals. It said the 'horrific display' of cruelty in which a decapitated fox was publicly exhibited with its body suspended by rope is not an isolated incident. It also contests the current 1976 Wildlife Act as it offers no meaningful defence against barbaric acts and empowers those with a 'depraved disregard' for animal welfare. 'It is a direct consequence of a legal vacuum that effectively designates the fox as "fair game" for those who revel in inflicting torture and death upon Ireland's only wild dog,' said John Tierney, Campaigns Director for the AOHS. 'This wasn't merely an evil act; it was a defiant exhibition of cruelty, enabled by laws that offer foxes zero protection. It plumbs the depths of animal abuse and highlights the urgent, undeniable need for legislative change. How many more innocent fox hunting lives must be subjected to such atrocities before the Irish government acts?' Mr Tierney added. He said the AOHS 'unequivocally demands' immediate and comprehensive action and a complete ban on all forms of fox hunting while calling for the 'unequivocal inclusion' of the fox under the full protective umbrella of the 1976 Wildlife Act. 'The time for inaction is over. The public outrage generated by this barbaric act must be the catalyst for genuine reform,' Mr Tierney said.
