A resident of Riverside Drive has been tracking helicopter flights on a website and sent us this image of the traffic on Saturday.

An agreement between the city and helicopter operators will impose new restrictions on the ‘copter tours, including a ban on tourist flights on Sundays, Council Member Helen Rosenthal announced.

“Upper West Siders who spend time in Riverside Park or live near it are fed up with incessant tourist helicopter noise every day of the week. This Sunday, for the first time in years, they’ll experience relief, as they will every Sunday after that. This is just the beginning of several improvements that will improve quality of life for New Yorkers from Inwood to Sunset Heights, including additional reductions that will begin in June.”

The increasing volume of helicopter flights has frustrated many residents in the past few years. One Riverside Drive resident wrote to us on Saturday saying he was fed up: “Officially there were 56000 tourist flights last year, meaning 112000 up and down the Hudson corridor. Based on my daily observations I believe this number is inaccurate and some flights turn off their call sign so they do not register. We have lived on the UWS for 30 years and never had this number of flights before last autumn when the flight paths changed.”

View Rosenthal’s entire message, which includes the timeline of further declines in helcippter traffic, here.