[Faaak]

I'm always dumbfounded when I see that noise emissions are still not taken seriously and not enforced.

I live near a freeway and the cars don't bother me that much (I'm far away that they sound like white noise). But the motorbikes, however, are the works.

Some of them don't make that much noise, but the outliers make you go crazy. It's a shame really

[techsupporter]

> but the outliers make you go crazy

Agreed, so very much. I live across the way from an old-age care home and, based on stereotypes, you'd figure that would be quiet living. Not so much. Their landscaping crew gets out with leaf blowers every day, they have a weekly generator run-up test that lasts for half an hour and pulses with a deep bass, and every few hours on every nice day they pump out the best hits from the 1940s and 1950s on their outdoor patio.

Almost all of these are louder than the city's rules permit but code enforcement has told me that because both buildings face each other over a privately-owned parcel (one of these "privately owned public spaces"), the noise transmission rules do not apply.

I found this out after I called the care home, twice, to ask if they could maybe turn down the music or do the generator test later in the day (when more people are out and it would be drowned out by other ambient noise) only to be told, politely, to bugger off.

I like living in a city and am not going to move--it's not that annoying, compared to benefits I get in return--but sometimes I wish the commons weren't so tragedy.

[shados]

This is something that drives me banana. The answer you'll get is always "Well, cities are noisy, deal with it or live in the suburb.

But the thing is they don't have to be. Sure, you have to expect people talking, cars going through, people mowing the grass, the occasional honking. But even in the middle of Manhattan, the only noise that will wake you up in the morning are people being assholes or breaking rules. Special construction permits that have no business being issued (eg: jackhammers in the middle of the night), people screaming (why?), harleys motorcycles (why is that legal?), neighbors blasting music (you can hear it just fine, can you lower it a bit?), musicians in apartments (can't you use an electronic drum to practice?).

Everything's avoidable. People are just inconsiderate, and/or the problem isn't taken seriously. But no, it's not inherent to living in a dense area, unless you're talking about "being surrounded by assholes" being inherent to cities. Then yeah.

suburbs aren't really a solution because people can be assholes everywhere. But even if they weren't, current pushes to get rid of restrictive zoning means you won't be safe in a suburb for much longer anyway. We need solutions for noise in densely populated areas because we're not going to be able to avoid it long terms. The solutions all exist, they just need to be implemented and enforced.

[pbhjpbhj]

I was born in the country (UK) we could hear individual cars coming from a mile away. We live about a mile from a 2-lane motorway: it's been bliss for me in the depth of lockdown that at times it's been silent, and again I've been able to hear (quietly) individual vehicles at night, or none at all.

My kids, brought up with it, were surprised to even be told there is motorway noise, they simply don't notice it.

[ghaff]

Yeah, you actually need to be pretty far from roads with any traffic not to hear anything at all.

I'm maybe 500 feet from a 2-lane road and about a mile from an Interstate in a fairly spread out area. It's not exactly noisy but with windows open and no music or anything playing, you definitely hear the road traffic.

[dylan604]

> But the motorbikes, however, are the works.

And they do it deliberately. The concept of "loud pipes save lives" is so annoying. Maybe on the highway, but the way they rev their engines in neighborhoods is not necessary or even in town.