AVIATION TRAFFIC COULD BE BOTH SAFER, QUIETER.

Byline: Dave Golonski

THE headline on a recent commentary in the Daily News, ``Airport expansion will go forward; the only question is at what price,'' had it half right.

The article was written by the executive director of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport, Thomas Greer. At what speed and in what form expansion may take place is certainly in question. What is not in question is that it is the residents of Burbank, Glendale and parts of the San Fernando Valley who will pay the price of the airport's growth-at-any-cost expansion plans. And that price is paid in noise, traffic and pollution.

Let me set the record straight. The city of Burbank favors a new, modern terminal relocated to a safer position. No one cares more about a safer airport than the residents and businesses that surround it. But a safer airport is a very different thing from one that handles twice as many passengers.

The issue is one of balance. What must be determined is the appropriate level of expansion at the airport weighed against the adverse impact that growth will have on the noise, traffic and pollution in Burbank and the region. Greer ignores those consequences. That's been the problem al along and why this dispute has ended up in the courts.

Like the big screen's Godzilla, the Airport Authority is carelessly trampling everything that gets in its way as it attempts to satisfy its expansionist appetite. As justification for its expansion plans, the authority cites what it says is steadily increasing passenger demand. Conveniently ignored is that passenger traffic has decreased significantly for two consecutive years.

The concerns of local residents and businesses are like the buildings in the Godzilla movie, haphazardly brushed aside or crushed as minor annoyances. The thousands of people negatively affected by unrestrained airport expansion cannot, should not and will not be cast aside that easily.

From the inception of the publicly owned airport in 1977, area residents were promised Burbank Airport would not be allowed to grow. Back then, the people of Burbank were concerned about increases in noise, pollution, and traffic. They remain concerned today. Yet, the Airport Authority chooses to ignore these promises.

Greer's column urges the city of Burbank to find a way to ``assist creating the best possible terminal.'' But every time Burbank has offered counterproposals over the last two years, the Airport Authority has rejected them and offered no alternative of its own. The authority's response is a cavalier ``that's impossible'' or ``the airlines won't support that.'' Airport commissioners effectively fold their arms and say our way or the runway.

The public might as well turn over management of the airport to the airlines for all the concern shown by the Airport Authority to the people most negatively affected by this grandiose expansion plan.

Greer decries the cost of litigating this dispute; yet it is authority that has sued the city of Burbank a number of times, and it clearly has been the authority's strategy to take actions to force the city to file other lawsuits.

The most recent legal action filed by Burbank, to compel the authority to abide by the city's land-use laws, would have been unnecessary if the authority had simply acknowledged it would follow the law. That was the simple request the city made in writing after the authority presented a terminal plan that violated zoning designations that are more than 20 years old.

The authority, however, refuses to make that simple, unequivocal statement. We have to ask why.

The Airport Authority also knows full well it could take a number of actions, without Federal Aviation Administration approval, to lessen noise at the airport. For one, it could simply enforce its own noise rules. It has refused to do so. Again, we have to ask why.

In a recent legal brief, even Caltrans attorneys questioned why the authority does not impose additional noise abatement procedures. The attorneys have said the authority seems to cite ``only fear of rejection by the FAA, not any need peculiar to users of this airport.''

The city of Burbank's goals are clear, attainable and reasonable. We want controls on some type of airport growth so noise, traffic and pollution will not increase. We want an enforceable late-night curfew rather than the current totally ineffective voluntary curfew on flights between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.

Why? For example, right now, with the phony curfew, jet noise from a gamblers' special out of Las Vegas lands at Burbank Airport four nights a week, jolting people awake at 1:27 a.m.

Balance is the watchword. The City of Burbank simply wants the Airport Authority to accept the legitimate concerns of Burbank and other residents affected by airport. Ignoring or denigrating those concerns and refusing to compromise on any core issues will only assure years more in the courts.