BWI overnight noise to continue a month

Traffic to shift periodically to little-used runway

Residents of Linthicum, Ferndale and other communities near Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport must endure about another month of unusually loud nights as work continues on a runway repaving project, a BWI spokesman said.

The airport will periodically close its two busiest runways between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. until the project is completed in mid-October, BWI spokesman Jonathan Dean said. On those nights it will shift traffic to the normally little-used runway 422, which will mean increased noise for communities toward the northeast of the airport, Dean said.

The two main runways were shut down for 54 continuous hours last weekend as contractors performed the most intensive phase to the repaving of their intersection. Dean said the planned work was completed successfully but that parts of the project will still require overnight closings.

Dean said traffic falls off considerably during the overnight hours but that there are still scheduled arrivals and departures -- both passenger flights and freight deliveries. He said residents of the affected neighborhoods had been informed through community organizations and the BWI Neighbors Committee.

Michael Dresser