Racine police are cracking down on loud car stereos and finding people with
outstanding warrants and other violators in the process.
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Friday, July 06, 2007
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
New York's Noise Code
From TimeOut New York:
The Green Issue
The silent killer
Pissed off by noise? So is the environment. And the city’s on your side.
By Daniel Holloway
In 1972, New York became the first city to arm itself with a noise code. But you’re forgiven if you didn’t even know we had one: It went without revision for more than 30 years, during which time the city saw more development, more people, more machines and more…noise.
It took the mayor to step things up, goading an inert City Council. “To his credit, Bloomberg said, ‘Get it…done…now,’ ” says Dr. Arline Bronzaft of the mayor’s 2005 push to revise. She’s chaired the noise committee for the Council on the Environment under four mayors and is one of the country’s foremost researchers.
The new rules, which took effect July 1, impact developers the hardest. The city demands they plan for the abatement of noise during construction, and even suggests new tools they can buy (e.g., noise-reducing mufflers for jackhammers) to make the erection of condo towers as quiet as a mathlete’s birthday party. The fine for ignoring the plan: $875–$1,400 for the first offense. But the code’s most vocal opponents have been what Bronzaft calls “nightlife people.”
“Before the code was passed, Bloomberg tried to deal with the people who objected most—the bar owners, the nightlife people,” she says, uttering the last two words in a tone that would make Andy Rooney quiver. She then slips into a mocking voice: “ ‘Oh, we’re getting such fines now. And people are picking on us already, and they’re going to be picking on us more.’ I turned to their spokesperson and said, ‘Okay, tell me how much these people pay in fines every year. Give me data. I’m a data-oriented person.’” She pauses for a moment. “I can never get that from their people.”
The point Bronzaft comes back to again and again is that the detrimental effects of noise pollution are legion—and obvious. She recalls one study she conducted in 1981 at an upper Manhattan school where sixth-graders on one side of the building—the side closest to a set of subway tracks—consistently tested one grade level lower in reading than their peers on the other side. The school installed sound-reducing tiles and convinced the MTA to place sound-reducing rubber padding on the tracks. The disparity vanished.
“If you can’t read a book, if you find you’re awakened during the night, you may not yet find you have the cardiovascular disorders or the gastrointestinal disorders, but your quality of life is being diminished,” Bronzaft says. “I don’t think we should ask, ‘What physiological disorders have noise created?’ We should ask, ‘What kind of life are people living?’ ”
Bronzaft is taking a wait-and-see approach on the new code. Like any good academic, she won’t be satisfied with the results until she sees concrete facts. But she hopes that environmentalists will come around to viewing her fight as theirs. After all, too much noise ruins everybody’s beauty sleep, and it endangers the love lives of birds—they can’t hear mating calls.
“With all due respect to the green world, they have not included noise pollution,” she says. “If you want a better environment, a sounder environment, a healthier environment, I think you need a quieter environment. And it should be part of this world of greening.”
From TimeOut New York:
The Green Issue
The silent killer
Pissed off by noise? So is the environment. And the city’s on your side.
By Daniel Holloway
In 1972, New York became the first city to arm itself with a noise code. But you’re forgiven if you didn’t even know we had one: It went without revision for more than 30 years, during which time the city saw more development, more people, more machines and more…noise.
It took the mayor to step things up, goading an inert City Council. “To his credit, Bloomberg said, ‘Get it…done…now,’ ” says Dr. Arline Bronzaft of the mayor’s 2005 push to revise. She’s chaired the noise committee for the Council on the Environment under four mayors and is one of the country’s foremost researchers.
The new rules, which took effect July 1, impact developers the hardest. The city demands they plan for the abatement of noise during construction, and even suggests new tools they can buy (e.g., noise-reducing mufflers for jackhammers) to make the erection of condo towers as quiet as a mathlete’s birthday party. The fine for ignoring the plan: $875–$1,400 for the first offense. But the code’s most vocal opponents have been what Bronzaft calls “nightlife people.”
“Before the code was passed, Bloomberg tried to deal with the people who objected most—the bar owners, the nightlife people,” she says, uttering the last two words in a tone that would make Andy Rooney quiver. She then slips into a mocking voice: “ ‘Oh, we’re getting such fines now. And people are picking on us already, and they’re going to be picking on us more.’ I turned to their spokesperson and said, ‘Okay, tell me how much these people pay in fines every year. Give me data. I’m a data-oriented person.’” She pauses for a moment. “I can never get that from their people.”
The point Bronzaft comes back to again and again is that the detrimental effects of noise pollution are legion—and obvious. She recalls one study she conducted in 1981 at an upper Manhattan school where sixth-graders on one side of the building—the side closest to a set of subway tracks—consistently tested one grade level lower in reading than their peers on the other side. The school installed sound-reducing tiles and convinced the MTA to place sound-reducing rubber padding on the tracks. The disparity vanished.
“If you can’t read a book, if you find you’re awakened during the night, you may not yet find you have the cardiovascular disorders or the gastrointestinal disorders, but your quality of life is being diminished,” Bronzaft says. “I don’t think we should ask, ‘What physiological disorders have noise created?’ We should ask, ‘What kind of life are people living?’ ”
Bronzaft is taking a wait-and-see approach on the new code. Like any good academic, she won’t be satisfied with the results until she sees concrete facts. But she hopes that environmentalists will come around to viewing her fight as theirs. After all, too much noise ruins everybody’s beauty sleep, and it endangers the love lives of birds—they can’t hear mating calls.
“With all due respect to the green world, they have not included noise pollution,” she says. “If you want a better environment, a sounder environment, a healthier environment, I think you need a quieter environment. And it should be part of this world of greening.”
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