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It’s Up to All of Us
You are more often than not on your own in this noisy world. As a would-not-be noise receiver you can try to avoid noisy places, and try to shield your immediate environment from external noise sources. You can try to keep down the noise produced in your own home. You can simulate partial deafness by putting things in or over your ears. You can make noise to drown out other noises. And, if all else fails, you can always flee–perhaps even to a quieter spot.
Whenever you might move, you can check for present and future noise-annoyance sources (it won’t be easy):
Local, state, and Federal agencies can be queried for current paths of surface, air, and underground transportation. You can check on contemplated road and subway construction, emergency holding patterns, new flight paths for jets and helicopters, new STOLport flight paths, and proposed hovercraft routes. You may even be able to obtain noise contour maps from the responsible agency (if any) and try to get an interpretation of what these various transportation intrusions will mean in terms of known criteria for hearing loss, speech and sleep interference, and annoyance.
Be sure to ask for flight paths under both visual and instrument rules. (Instrument flight may be permitted over your head.) Find out if there are any limitations on aviation in terms of morning starting time limits, and restrictions on evening and Sunday morning flights. If there are no adequate restrictions, and there is no choice of dwelling, make provision with friends or relatives for an occasional restorative weekend sleep-over visit.
Check the distance to the nearest through road. Is it heavily trafficked? What is the percentage of truck traffic? Is it smooth-flow, or is there a stoplight or intersection that spells horn honking, brake squeal, and acceleration roar? Avoid living near a grade, or expect the noise of grinding gears. If there is a parking lot or public garage nearby, does the community exercise any noise control regulations over it? Do the police enforce or ignore them?
Check for future lengthy public works and utility projects, such as new sewers, water mains, underground gas and electric lines, telephone conduits, and so forth.
Prepare a “siren index.” Locate the nearest fire and police stations and hospitals. If statistics are available, study the number and localities of fires, crimes, and accidents, and project when and how often siren wails can be expected.
If the site of the dwelling you are investigating is near a river, how do you feel about boat and fog horns? Double-check on present and future plans to use this artery as a flight path for helicopters, STOLs, hovercraft, and hydrofoils.
Check the distance from schools and playgrounds, coffeehouses, nightclubs, bars, and other sources of potentially raucous noise.
Check for proximity to churches and synagogues. Are chimes amplified? What is their schedule? Has central air conditioning been installed, and if so, has it been silenced? Religious activities are generally exempt from noise control regulations, and there have been reported cases where religious administrators have refused to abate mechanical noise nuisance emanating from their premises.
Use your ingenuity to detect or predict other noise sources that could become a problem. It is much easier to avoid noise nuisance by not locating near it, than to get rid of it or to ward it off after you have moved in.
So much for the site. Now for the dwelling itself.
The homeowner who builds to his own specifications can ask for sound-conditioned construction. If he buys a home already built, his problems are similar to those of tenants in a multiple-dwelling unit.
Assuming the dwelling site is acceptable, try to avoid renting an apartment that is subject to undue noise stress because of either interior noise sources or poor isolation from adjacent apartments and service equipment.
Think twice before paying a higher rent to be on a high floor. According to studies made for the Greater London Council, height in itself is not a major factor in reducing average noise levels on either dwellings or office buildings. Exposure to other noise sources in the line of sight may in some circumstances increase the noise level on upper floors. For example, the upper floors may experience aviation noises from which the lower floors are shielded.
Look for an apartment in which at least the bedroom faces the rear of the building and is thus removed from the front line of street noise. As much as a 15-decibel difference may exist between the front and back of a building–assuming the rear apartment’s rooms are not above a kitchen, under a flight path, or near an unsilenced exhaust fan or air conditioner. Courtyards are not necessarily quieter, either.
Is the apartment near garage doors? If it is to be your own garage, nylon guides or runners can be installed. If it is a large garage for transient parkers who are invited to honk their horns as the open sesame, inquire about local horn ordinances that may make this an illegal act.
Look for instances of concern about sound control. Are the front doors tight-fitting to screen out hallway noises? Or too short for their frames, indicating that the builder tried to save money by making the common hallway part of the central ventilating system? Don’t accept casual statements about good sound insulation. Ask to see the actual wall and floor specifications and field-test results. If you can, ask an architect or acoustical consultant to analyze their adequacy for you. Caveat emptor is the byword for securing a quiet apartment.
Some experienced apartment hunters bring a friend or two with them and try to get them into the adjacent apartment or the one above, where they play a radio, drag a chair across the floor, walk about, jump a couple of times, talk loudly, and observe if the apartment overhead is carpeted, especially the bedroom. It is also wise to see whether appliances are mounted on the common wall.
It is a good idea to try to visit a prospective apartment when the neighbors are home, in the evening or during the weekend.
As you go about the building, check for potential noise from elevator doors and motors and ventilating and air conditioning compressors and blowers.
Within the apartment, scout around. Is shower noise contained within the bathroom? Can you hear neighboring bathroom activity? Is the ventilator in the bathroom sound-conditioned, or does it serve as a two-way megaphone? Are doors between rooms tight? Undercut doors make it difficult to isolate noises made by individual family members. Are the light switches the noiseless type, or do they operate with a click that can shock a nervous system under stress?
Turn on all the “mechanized conveniences” at the same time: dishwasher, garbage disposal unit, range exhaust, and air conditioners. Mentally, add the noise of your own appliances: blender, vacuum, electric can opener, dryer. Will they be isolated from other rooms by solid walls and tight door construction? Imagine listening to your stereo or television while the kitchen appliances are working and the children are playing in their room. Imagine also possible external noises: traffic, aviation, sirens, construction. The total of this is called “maximum acoustical stress,” and is of course only theoretical. But unfortunately, most apartments in America would not pass these tests.
Do not chastise yourself if you move into a noise trap despite your attempts to avoid one. Even noise experts get stung. One unfortunate checked his $500-a-month apartment while the building was still under construction, and was satisfied it would be quiet. Once he moved in, he became painfully aware of the heating and air conditioning system directly below his apartment. Only the threat of legal action forced the landlord to install vibration-insulators on the noisy pumps and motors.
If one has the misfortune of leasing a noisy apartment, then what?
The main ingress for exterior noise of traffic is the window. If we could forego visual contact with the outside world, the simplest noise solution would be to seal the windows-ideally with lead or leaded sheets, less effectively, with plywood. Well, one can live without outdoor light or view, but not without fresh air.
Sound-trapped ventilating units, with and without air conditioning, are available. Heavier window panes or commercial double-hung windows are another solution. An inexpensive but relatively effective method is to use tight-fitting storm windows, with neoprene beads if possible. The ventilation problem can be overcome by having the regular window and the storm window open at opposite ends. Remember this acoustic rule of thumb: if a sound wave makes a 45° or greater bend, some of its energy is lost.
Even if you cannot do much about the windows, some of the reverberation from outside noise can be reduced by covering the ceiling and walls with sound-absorbers. Acoustical ceiling tile is available and can also be applied to walls. Acoustical tile minimizes the annoyance of reflected sound. It is not a sound barrier. It is not a noise insulator. (Unknowing or unscrupulous contractors and dealers will sell acoustical tile to noise victims who are seeking relief from impact noises generated by upstairs neighbors. The product is not designed for this purpose, and sales made under these circumstances verge on fraud.) The product itself must be an effective sound absorber, with a minimal thickness as well as absorbent properties. “Acoustical paint” has no significant sound-absorption properties. Check with the Acoustical and Insulating Materials Association for a list of standard absorption coefficients.
Walls can be covered with soft drapes, tapestries, or wall hangings; our castle-dwelling ancestors knew a thing or two about echo control.
Furnish the apartment with upholstered furniture and line the walls with books, both of which absorb sound. If possible, make the “party wall” your bookshelf wall. Or perhaps you can add closets to this wall. If so, keep linen, clothing, and other absorbers in them. For acute problems, a false wall can be added.
Noises coming through a wall adjacent to a neighboring apartment can be a pernicious problem. Sound-absorbing treatment will not keep out this kind of intrusion.
The Noise Abatement Society suggests “fibre insulating board mounted on wooden battens for reducing airborne noises between rooms, such as baby cries and voices.” Musicians often treat their practice rooms in this way. Ideally, this type of installation should be made by an acoustical building contractor.
Study your lease, and know what violates its nondisturbance clauses.
Establish contact with your neighbor. Inquire if his television and hi fi could be placed away from the party wall. Try to make an agreement that each of you will keep the volume at a reasonable level, and not emphasize the bass (sound-insulated walls are more effective in keeping out the upper frequencies than the lower ones). Perhaps all tenants can get together and agree to remove their shoes upon entering their apartments, Japanese style. Check your lease for a carpeting clause.
One readily corrected source of impact noise is that created at the interface of a metal ceiling fixture and the ceiling. If this is a problem, have a rubber gasket installed.
Because acoustical slums are to be with us for many decades, and the use of amplified sound sources is proliferating, acoustic consideration dictates the use of headphones as a desired control technique. Their use not only keeps you from annoying neighbors, especially late at night, it improves the enjoyment of listening by screening out the “normal” intrusive sounds that keep one from hearing soft music and the nuances which heighten the sense of “presence.” Convince your neighbor of this.
Variety tells us: “Headphones make it possible for a musician to practice an amplified instrument without creating hostile neighbors.” Remember this when your community wants to improve its anti-noise laws.
If you become desperate, explore “personal protection,” the euphemism for inducing voluntary partial deafness by means of ear protectors.
The most common device is the earplug, recommended if one has trouble hearing acoustic signals, if vocational noise exposure warrants ear protection, and if local noise is extremely irritating. Originally designed to minimize the danger of industrial and military hearing loss, it has been claimed that more than 18 million Americans wear earplugs on the street and in bed. Manufacturers throughout the world are producing earplugs that are hard, soft, or malleable. England’s KIFA, which is like a tampon, comes complete with a tassel for removal. Another company has Muffles. A Swedish variety is the glass-wool Billesholm Horsel-Skydd (mott buljer), which is sold in English-speaking countries as Billesholm’s Anti Noise. In Germany one finds Ohreschutzer. In the United States, Flents and Nods are examples of the malleable (wax) type of earplug. Although most earplugs are sold directly to industry, some varieties can be purchased in local drugstores.
Besides some physical discomfort and inconvenience, earplugs are expensive. What do plastic earplugs cost individuals who buy them for non-factory wear? A whopping $1.50, at least. Industry and the military, accounting for a substantial amount of the sales, buy them in quantities of 500 pairs or more at a time, and may pay as little as 75¢ per pair.
The acoustic earmuff is somewhat more comfortable than the earplug, because the cup covers the ear and the pressure is on the side of the surface of the head rather than in the ear itself. Earmuffs, if ordered in large numbers, can be found at something like $5. At this low, low price, one researcher estimated it would cost industry something like between $27.5 and $89.1 million per year to substitute ear protection for noise reduction. This estimate is based on the assumption that there are 34 million workers in noisy jobs, and that all must be protected from above-damage-risk noise exposure.
Since I had to buy at retail, my sundry collection of earplugs and two pairs of earmuffs cost me about $50. The irony is that not only does the non-occupational public have to pay the higher retail prices, it receives less value, because both plugs and muffs are designed to protect from hearing loss, and not from annoyance. The annoyance is reduced; it is not reduced enough.
Earplugs do not provide good protection from the sound energy of lower frequencies, and the rumble of traffic noise is most often of low frequency. Although the whine of the jet compressor is high frequency, the bulk of jet-engine noise is also in the lower frequencies. Nevertheless, for a modicum of relief, earplugs are almost mandatory for individuals living near airports.
Check with your doctor before wearing earplugs. I wore half-a-dozen varieties during the siege of upper Sixth Avenue, until my ear doctor told me not to, that I was irritating my ear canal. Earplugs must be carefully fitted: the two human ears differ in size. The Public Health Service recommends that earplugs for industrial use be issued only by a plant physician (or nurse) who is qualified to select the proper plug, as well as instruct the user on how wear and care for these devices. The agency further recommends that earplug users be spot-checked to insure that these safeguards are being correctly employed.
Caution: do not use the type of earplug that has a metal valve, which is supposed to stay open in low-noise situations to allow conversation. The metal valve represents a potential hazard if one receives a blow on the head.
Solid earplugs require care. The softer the device, the more comfortable it is to use; however, the soft ones are less durable. Ear wax, dirt, perspiration, and other foreign matter can cause the plugs’ resilient constituents to harden, crack, or expand, and become too soft. On the other hand, harder plugs, although more durable, are less comfortable and more likely to irritate the ear canal. Travelers should be aware that earplugs are especially likely to cause ear canal inflammation in tropical climates.
Cotton is worthless as an earplug.
One other precaution: do not wear earplugs while brushing your teeth; the effect is not unlike chalk rasping over a blackboard.
Paradoxically, earplugs make it more difficult to hear speech in quieter surroundings than in noisier ones, such as a factory. Speech comprehension is difficult in areas of low background noise if one is wearing earplugs. Worn while sleeping, earplugs could muffle a child’s weak nighttime call, some sounds of danger, and other “noises” that one wants to receive.
After years of educational programs to promote hearing conservation, factory workers continue to resist protecting their ears with earplugs. Apparently the certainty of discomfort overrules the threat of deafness. These earplug resisters must also know from experience that, in some intense noise situations, plugs afford little or no relief or protection.
Developed by the military to protect “aircraft guiders” on carrier decks from hearing loss, acoustic earmuffs are minimally effective in screening out the annoying lower-frequencies of everyday noises.
Any effectiveness of muffs that are available for general use must be weighed against these devices’ shortcomings. There is the discomfort from perspiration that develops between the muffs’ tight seal and the side of the head. Their use makes telephoning a comical operation. It is quite a feat to clamp one of the cups over the telephone receiver and keep one’s eyeglasses from falling off, while trying to hold a pen! (Wearers of glasses who are subject to a “temporary” spell of construction noise might consider obtaining contact lenses.) Because of their protruding cups, earmuffs cannot be used while sleeping. They interfere with lovemaking, and a careless passionate kiss between two persons wearing earmuffs could leave one partner with a mouth full of plastic or a black eye.
To appeal to women, manufacturers have developed a model earmuff that has a rotating band that can be worn under the chin, leaving coiffures unscathed. Earmuff manufacturers are also getting away from the drab gray of their initial product, and offering models in orange and blue.
Your hands are the most natural form of ear protection. At the Human Engineering Laboratories of the U.S. Army, a study was conducted of the comparative effectiveness of fingers, palms, tragi (the prominence in front of the external opening of the ear), and earplugs as noise blockers. The tragi won, hands down–or up, rather. At 34 decibels attenuation, the tragi were found to be quite superior to earplugs, which averaged only 21 decibels attenuation. Moderately effective were fingers for attenuating low-frequency sounds, and palms for high frequencies.
These findings would suggest that tragi should be depressed over the ear canals for jet flyovers, fingers stuck in the canals for traffic noise, and the palms of one’s hands placed over the canals for construction noise. Earplugs and earmuffs have the advantage of leaving one’s hands free, however. Perhaps Mother Nature will respond to the plight of modern urban man, and create a mutant with self-closing tragi.
One serious threat of intense noise is that sound energy can penetrate the soft tissues of the body. To protect particularly vulnerable flight-deck personnel, a British manufacturer has developed an anti-noise suit. Resembling a suit of chain mail, it covers one from the top of the head to the bottom of the torso.
If your noise is not intense enough to penetrate your abdomen or groin, you may be satisfied with the completely enclosed acoustic helmet developed for spaceship launching. Equipped with its own oxygen supply, telephone jacks, and built-in radio transmitter/receiver, it makes possible communication with one’s loved ones, while at the same time solving the air pollution problem.
To be forced to wear ear protectors is like being forced to wear an oxygen mask as the answer to air pollution. This price lessens the life experience. After reviewing the complexities and inadequacies of trying to avoid noise, it makes more sense to reduce noise at the source. We must design for quiet.
But it should be clear by now that a quieter world is up to all of us. Government and industry cannot and will not respond without incentives. Government and industry certainly will not respond if they believe that the demand for less noise is only the feeble outcry of a few hypersensitive “kooks,” or “chronic malcontents.”
Years of exposure and frustration may have deadened your awareness. Prepare for your attack by forcing yourself to listen. Make up your own list of disturbing noises; or, start with that list of ten most unwanted sounds of 1956:
- Refuse collection
- Hornblowing
- Acceleration of motors
- Blaring of radio and TV sets
- Aircraft noise
- Unmuffled exhausts
- Street repairs
- Sound trucks
- Construction riveting
- Doormen’s whistles
How many of these sources are you exposed to today? Which new ones would you add to the list? In what order?
Keep a noise diary. List sources, time of day, how you reacted. Were you distracted, conversation halted, sleep lost? How do others react? Next time you visit a hospital, notice whether your friend or relative is shielded from the sounds of other patients and of hospital procedures. Can he really rest?
Visit a school. Does it have an amplified intercom with a shrill speaker? Tiled hall acting like an echo chamber? Noisy lunchroom?
Contrast your regular acoustic environment with the sounds of a natural environment. Can you hear the sounds of birds, murmuring of water, rustling of wind in the trees?
Has noise made your home a place to escape from? How often do you leave your community, not because you want to, but because escape from noise is a necessity? How much additional are you paying to find a quiet vacation spot? Can you find one?
These acts of conscious listening will force you to question the price of progress. You will develop a tangible, albeit ugly, picture of how uncaring people have been permitted to degrade your environment.
The acute awareness of excessive noise may temporarily make you ill, but this should only strengthen your resolve to act. To learn to hear noises is not to learn to love them. Convert your hurt, or that of other noise victims, into curiosity, your curiosity into anger, and your anger into action.
In addition to learning to identify the noises, learn to identify the justifications for noise. Since the dawn of history myths have been used to keep an oppressed group from asking too many questions. Myths are seldom challenged, especially today, when they are created and dispensed by high priests as awesome as physicians, scientists, and engineers.
To spot justifications for noise, watch for the following myths: Noise is the price of progress. Noise is a necessary evil. Noise abatement must be realistic (that is, not cost anything). The public does not want to pay for quiet. Silencing will hurt progress. Background noise is acceptable; it is the intrusive noise that is the problem. Daytime noise is more acceptable than nighttime noise.
(On that last, the Wilson Committee reported evidence that the total annoyance caused to the population is roughly the same by day and by night, and concluded that “a great noise in a residential area will be most disturbing during the night, and in commercial areas…probably during the day.”)
Hold suspect “acceptability” goals. Who is behind them? Industry? Government agencies that use industry’s definitions of what your acoustic environment is to be like? Is “acceptability” defined as a comfortable environment, or one to be endured?
In any tyranny–and that of noise is no different–the problem is to keep alive the flicker of hope. This can be done by making noise visible. One technique is to develop your own set of “noise games.” For example, play Community Noise Protection Index. Make up a list of the ideal elements you would like in a noise ordinance. Research your local, state, and Federal laws. Then prepare the score card:
Ordinance, Regulation, or Law
| Noise Source | None | Meaningful | Not Meaningful | Enforced | Not Enforced |
|
TRANSPORTATION Air MOBILE FACTORIES BUILDING CODE CONSTRUCTION BARS, NIGHTCLUBS PLANNING TRANSISTOR RADIOS IN PUBLIC PLACES NOISE CONTROL ENFORCEMENT AGENCY NOISE CONTROL LABORATORY NOISE ABATEMENT COURSES |
You may be told that cost is the reason your community does not have much in the way of enforcement. So now compute the “cost” of noise. For example, count the number of air compressor and jackhammer operators employed in your community, establish your own idea of the dollar value of the ability to hear speech, and multiply. Establish an arbitrary value for the efficiency lost because of poor sleep, and estimate how many in your community are not getting a good night’s sleep because of sirens, unmuffled noises of social utility, and the like. Set a dollar value on a businessman’s day, and deduct the percentage lost because of disturbed sleep, masked speech, and other distractions.
Play “shoulds.” What could and should be done, and how, and by whom?
The act of paying attention to noise will elevate you to a role of leadership. Organize a noise-defense unit in your community. Power structures tend to respond more readily to group pressure. An organization also facilitates the development of strategy and tactics, and the opening of lines of communication.
Do not be deterred from organizing because there may be a government noise abatement function, or a government task force on noise. Government represents all interests equally–but the vested interests more equally than the public’s.
If funds are a problem and overhead must be kept to a minimum, it might be worth while to activate a noise abatement committee within an already existing organization. One advantage of this kind of affiliation is that your issue gains immediate entry into the body politic.
If funds will be available without having to offer a tax deductibility, forego that luxury and be free to lobby for necessary legislation.
Either way, raise funds for the task to be done. It is a myth that civic non-profit efforts must be amateurish and saddled with economic sacrifice. You are preparing for a knock-down, drag-out fight, not the Olympics. Raise funds for the necessary office operations, for special skills, for advertising, publicity, research, and legal battles. Travel funds will make possible attendance at the various noise abatement meetings now springing up; a speaker fund will bring noise abatement expertise to your own meeting.
Organize volunteers, the lifeblood of a grassroots movement.
Now you are ready to think strategy and employ tactics. Look upon the fight for quiet as a chess game played against the indifferent. Plan to bypass the ineffectual pawns, harass the more powerful rooks, bishops, and knights, and ultimately checkmate the noisemaker king.
Do not be insular in your organizing activities. For example, seek to win the cooperation of the farmer and his wife–for the common purpose of environmental survival. The farmer can offer urban man Congressional support; a well-funded Department of Agriculture; direct aid through the extension services operated by the land-grant colleges and financed by the Federal government.
Go further, and seek an urban-suburban-rural coalition.
Place noise abatement on the agenda of a civic organization. Provide substantiating background material. Work up an anti-noise resolution, and help win support for it.
A demonstration is a great convincer. When the late Lucy Milligan invited me to appear before the New York Federation of Women’s Clubs, I plugged in a small electric motor mounted on a wooden base. It had the irritating whine of a vacuum cleaner. Then, like a magician, I made three successive moves. The whine disappeared and the motor was barely audible. Noise control expert Francis Kirschner had prepared a noise-control-in-practice kit for me to use. The noise disappeared with the insertion of makeshift mufflers.
“Now, ladies,” I told the audience, “if anyone tells you noise is the price of progress, remember what you have just seen and heard.” The resolution was passed with what I was told was an unusual unanimity.
Get the doctors involved. Don’t let them get away with the customary “take an aspirin.”
It is high time that the otologists–who have borne the brunt of the work in occupational and military noise–be augmented by neurologists, endocrinologists, psychiatrists–the entire spectrum of medicine. We must learn more about the extra-auditory effects of noise. If the evidence is not conclusive for a relationship between noise and disease, the epidemiologists must determine whether there is a greater chance for an ulcer or a heart attack in a noise-stressed environment. To persist in ignoring the total systemic response to noxious sound energy is as foolishly restrictive as to see air pollution only in terms of its effect on visibility.
Medical schools and other research institutions must try to discover why the living organism is annoyed by noise, must explore the significance of the physiological changes. They should be trying to find out why one person is more disturbed than another. They should also try to discover if–for cultural and other reasons–only a minority will admit to noise disturbance.
If nothing else, ask your physician if the concept of preventive medicine does not warrant his interest in abatement. Ask him whether or not he has heard of doctors who find it difficult to use stethoscopes in today’s noisy world. Ask if he himself needs the new anti-noise stethoscope. Tell your doctor that his colleagues complain about noise just as much as you do. If you have an ailment for which he has prescribed rest, tranquility, adequate sleep, ask him what drugstore can fill that prescription.
Enlist the support of the church and the synagogue. Organized religion can do more than tell its congregations that noise is cruel, that noise violates the dignity of man. The houses of worship can practice what they preach by themselves being good neighbors.
In 1966 the Department of Commerce estimated that $1,275,000 would be spent for religious buildings. Let the church or synagogue, in sending out construction bids, ask for quiet methods and materials, and award their bids to the contractor who offers to build quietly and for quiet. This action would hasten the end of the curse of construction noise. The religious institutions can ask their contractors and architects to install central air conditioning that is properly designed not to cause noise annoyance. And finally, they can check to make sure their chimes aren’t a problem to the community.
End the alienation between the makers of things and the public that must live with them. It may be against the law for you to silence a noisemaker’s machine; it is not against the law to talk to him about it.
Get to know the noisemaker and his experts. Make yourself and your neighbors visible to his distributors, his trade associations. Friendly intervisitation will create an image of the public as flesh and blood, and not stereotyped statistical abstractions.
What do you talk about at such meetings? Talk dollars and cents. Talk about noise-induced hearing loss and inefficiency, and ill-will. Offer incentives, and protection from unfair–that is, noisy–competition.
Explain to a contractor the hidden costs of potential workmen’s compensation claims. Explain to a factory operator the possibilities of lowered productivity, higher accident rates. Explain to all noisemakers of commerce and industry the potential of lawsuits, not only for hearing loss, but for the destruction of environmental quality.
Be prepared to show evidence of a market for quieter products, and that you are urging private purchasers and city agencies to “buy quiet.”
Offer an awards program that will engender goodwill for the provider of quiet.
With this type of rounded negotiations program, the dialogue between the public and the noisemaker can start on a basis of genuine desire for exploring mutual interests.
This dialogue is not meant to be a love-in. The noisemaker must be given to understand that you mean business–his business, if he does not respond. Use stockholder clout. Buy stock in corporations manufacturing noisy products. Encourage your friends to do the same. Then attend stockholders meetings and demand design for quiet. Conversely, refuse to own stock in companies that will not curb noise pollution.
Business thrives on competition, we are told. Stir up a little competition from less-polluting substitutes. It is not inconceivable that new space-age entrepreneurs will supplant the rigid old-guard that refuses to de-pollute its products.
Search the catalogues of foreign manufacturers, and encourage the importing of quieter products. Not until the discovery of quieter, competitively priced European construction equipment in 1966 were American manufacturers encouraged to lose their timidity and market some quiet products of their own.
More can be done than promoting the products of quiet design. Censure the noisy ones. Obtain the decibel readings of the noisy appliances and vehicles in your community, and publicize the results.
Economic pressure may encourage the American noisemaker to think of quiet as well as style. One method of protest is the boycott. Select one product that is noisier than others. If all products in that category are equally noisy, boycott all. This will entail sacrifice, but the noisemaker will not believe that noise is a bother until he sees evidence of some sacrifice in comfort, time or money. It should be possible to boycott one airline of several serving a given city. A leaf can be taken from the conservation movement: the Maine State Biologists Association conducted a national boycott of the products of a company accused of polluting a stream with its potato processing plant, according to The New York Times (April 6, 1969).
If industry cannot or will not design for quiet, the public may have to change its life-style, and forego some of the convenience and speed purchases that help degrade the environment. We may have to return to the use of hand-operated appliances in place of machines.
Industry should take the initiative to design for quiet without waiting for legislation and proof of a market. The motivation is the preservation of the human environment.
In the United States we are still waiting for the necessary legislation. The pitifully few ordinances wither for lack of enforcement. First and foremost we need to develop a climate for noise abatement. If we succeed in doing this, pressure for enforcement will be as child’s play.
It is not enough to build a better mouse trap; it must be promoted. It is not enough for the noise victims and the enlightened to know the dangers of unregulated noise. Noise must be made visible. As the Europeans told me, if people could see decibels, silence would be the order of the day.
It is not easy to convey an image of noise which will move the public to demand abatement. Fishermen get upset if a lake is polluted; the housewife can see soot and relate pollution to her laundry bill; chemical pollution is understandable to most. But noise is an abstraction, its noxious qualities difficult to demonstrate. Set against the conveniences and symbols of progress, arguments of environmental and personal degradation appear puny, at first. Education on behalf of noise abatement must be given top priority.
A simple technique, but of far-reaching value, is to ask your local radio and TV stations to broadcast volume-turndown messages after 11:00 p.m. As a matter of fact, try to get nighttime announcers to promote sleep-protection from whatever source.
Coordinate your anti-noise campaigns with an enforcement drive. Arouse the public to support anti-noise regulations. The AICB encourages its member organizations to conduct national anti-noise campaigns. Such noise abatement weeks, sponsored in cooperation with government, have taken place in Copenhagen, Rome, and Cordoba, Argentina, to name a few of the major cities. As part of such programs, the French noise abatement group has awarded Palms of Silence to government officials who have undertaken noise abatement actions. Austria has an annual “Noise-free Week.”
Success will vary, depending upon the goals, the preparation, and the cooperation. Cordoba (population 600,000) has a staff of five men trained in the city university’s acoustic laboratory. Although its first “Silence Week” brought only temporary relief, it did lay the groundwork for the eventual development of Argentina’s first Noise Abatement Council, as well as improvements in municipal anti-noise regulations.
All things being equal, it is better to show than to tell. At Baden-Baden, delegates were taken on a tour of the “Quiet Zone,” the largest such within a city. This was followed by a demonstration of silenced and non-silenced equipment. Hearing is believing.
Interconnect the areas of noise stress. Never forget that unlike the other “pollutants” noise hits people in small pockets. Individuals in one building may vary in their awareness of a noise problem emanating from the street outside, or even from a given neighbor. The people in center-city or quiet suburbs may be indifferent to the lot of the people living near jetports. The people living near jetports not only are indifferent to center-city residents, they would want them to install STOLports and heliports, anything to reduce the hellish noise exposure near the airports. Educational programs must be designed to reach out to this disconnected noise-stressed population.
Do not be afraid to use humor: the public is becoming enured to tales of unrelieved suffering. Britain’s John Connell, a public relations man by profession, encourages a wry statement of the problem, and the press responds. One of my favorite cartoons, published in Punch, depicts a suicide hurtling down a tall building, screaming at the top of his lungs. However, he is a considerate soul at heart, and as he passes the third-floor window of the Noise Abatement Society he dutifully muffles his screams, opening up fortissimo for the balance of the trip.
Sponsor meetings, symposia, and conferences. Locate specialists in medicine, engineering, and the humanities who have something constructive to say about noise abatement.
One suggestion for making noise visible is associated with something I saw in Copenhagen shortly after the end of its occupation by the Nazis. There were no signs of torture and executions. None, except that scattered through the city were small evergreen crosses, marking the sites where some patriotic Dane had paid the price of Hitler’s progress.
To alert the public to the needless suffering and the hazards of the tyranny of noise, symbols should be erected at each construction site, in each neighborhood under air assault, in front of each dwelling impacted by neighboring air conditioning systems or noisy neighbors.
If education fails to win either improved product design, or legislation, the next step is direct protest. This is called Complaining.
The public often asks whether or not it is worthwhile to complain. The answer is an absolute yes. Complaints are a significant indicator to the noisemaker. Though complaints can be manipulated, can be made to show an increase or decrease for the same noise source, the sophisticated noisemaker knows that individual reactions are potential threats. Noise control experts tell noisemakers to watch for the following community behavior: a letter of complaint to officials, a telephone call to the operator of the noise source, or the initiation of legal action to suppress the noise-producing activity. How far an individual or the community will go, is a barometer of how much noise the receiver will take. It is therefore important to register some form of protest when faced with a serious noise problem. Students of Queen Elizabeth College in Kensington, England, reacted militantly, but without violence, when construction noise kept them from studying for their exams; they simply went on strike.
It is difficult to assess complaints as a noise indicator, because the lack of complaints may have little to do with the seriousness of the noise in question. Lack of complaints may merely mean a lack of leadership, or a lack of the ability to communicate with the noisemaker or government. A lack of complaint may also be the result of individuals’ attitudes toward complaining.
The complexity of complaints as a means of evaluating a noise problem was noted in the Oklahoma City sonic boom tests, where the number of complaints was high, but the statistical percentage low. An evaluation of the complaint level was made in a government report on the tests:
“This relatively low complaint level at Oklahoma City was due primarily to three factors. First, there was widespread ignorance about where to complain; 70 per cent of all respondents expressed such ignorance in the interview. Second, there was a general feeling of futility in the usefulness of complaining; only 4 per cent felt there was a ‘very good’ chance of doing something about the booms, and another 10 per cent felt there was even a ‘good’ chance to do something. Third, the general pattern of complaining about local problems was low in Oklahoma City; only about a fourth of all people felt like complaining about a serious local problem when they had one.
“Only one in every twelve annoyed persons actually expressed their feelings to the FAA complaint center.”
Don’t complain in generalities. Know your target: be specific. Develop a “noise intrusion profile.” What is causing the noise? At what time of day? Who owns the source? Who operates it? Any regulations violated? In the case of aviation noise, plane spotters should have detailed data on type of plane, time of day, identification number, distance above buildings, and so forth.
Try to be specific about the impact of that noise source. What kind of structures are being hit: homes, hospitals, schools, churches? How many elderly, how many children? If schools are near an airport, how much classroom time is lost? One town effectively organized to stop a proposed private airport by producing evidence of how the resulting noise would impair classroom instruction. A state legislative committee was visibly impressed by a presentation which showed what the noise levels would be at the various schools and how this would interfere with speech communication.
Petitions–most effective if notarized–can provide useful statistics when taking a neighbor-noise complaint to court. Make sure that the press receives a copy of any letters of protest or petitions sent to government officials and/or noisemakers.
It is an art in itself to know where to complain and what government agency to complain to. Here is a partial list for New York City, just as one example:
| Noise Source | Agency |
|---|---|
| Over-all | Central Complaint Bureau Environmental Protection Administration |
| Moving buses | Metropolitan Transportation Authority |
| Idling buses and trucks | Department of Air Pollution Control |
| Building construction (between 6:00 P.M. and 7:00 A.M. except with emergency permit) | Central Complaint Section, Buildings Department |
| Utility construction (between 11:00 P.M. and 7:00 A.M.) | Construction Division, Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity |
| Private garbage collection (between 11:00 P.M. and A.M.) | Trade Waste Division, Department of Licenses* |
| Public garbage collection | Sanitation Department |
| Helicopters | Noise Abatement Officer, Federal Aviation Administration |
| Jets taking off | Kennedy and LaGuardia Operations: Port of New York Authority |
| Jets landing | Noise Abatement Officer, Federal Aviation Administration |
| Noise from loudspeakers, sound trucks, and other electrically amplified devices | Police Department |
| Neighbors After 11:00 P.M. Before 11:00 P.M. |
Police Department Your landlord |
| Restaurant air conditioners | Sanitary Inspection Office, Health Department |
* For a cease and desist order, supply the name of the carting company and the time and date they were making the noise.
In addition to complaining to administrative and police agencies, by all means let your local, state, and Congressional legislators know what is going on. Your city councilman may be hearing the same noise you hear, but accepting it as the price of progress.
The legal attack should include those government agencies holding responsibility for protecting the health and safety of workers. Government officials should be sued for not moving to require reasonable and adequate protection for workers in extremely noisy factories and computerized offices. Work sites above 85 decibels should be prima facie evidence of neglect.
At some point the public must realize it has nothing to lose but its pains. Protest must become militant: non-violent, but persistent.
Petitions must be replaced with peaceful demonstrations. Professor Amitai Etzioni, a member of the President’s National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, pointed out that many “respectable” members of the community were resorting to demonstrations as a political weapon: teachers, doctors, clergymen, and even police.
Picket to get attention. Picket the right targets. In the case of construction noise there is the contractor, the sponsoring developer or government agency, the manufacturer of the equipment, the manufacturer of the noisy components used to assemble that equipment. For good measure, picket City Hall and the medical societies.
Help the helpless. Picket construction and jet noise at hospitals and schools.
If desperate, try what others have tried: a noise for a noise. In England, citizens called Members of Parliament in the early hours of the morning to tell them they might be interested in knowing that there was jet noise in the land.
Check with your attorneys to clarify the legal aspects of this type of action. It is justified if in spite of the existence of silencing techniques the noisemaker continues to deprive human beings of their basic rights to sleep and rest and privacy. Make it cheaper and easier for a contractor to use muffled equipment than to withstand your pressures.
Make up a list of who to heckle about the noise. This will include manufacturers, distributors (stores, etc.), civic organizations, politicians. If the noise source is a brand name product, look up the name of the corporation president (your library can help you). Write to him. Send him petitions. Let the press know of your action. Do the same if the problem is one of government irresponsibility. The names of city officials will also be available in your library. The League of Women Voters can be helpful in identifying elected officials on all levels of government.
Any or all of the above measures are justifiable. Nonetheless, some can lead to arrest. This must be expected and accepted. The courts, however, should recognize the differences between destructive protests and protests of social value.
If workers want to preserve their hearing and general health, they may have to take similar steps. They must find a doctor brave enough and compassionate enough to start the battle for less occupational noise. Workers should demand that their unions press for work environments that minimize hearing damage and extra-auditory stress.
Since most of the burden for noise control is thrown on local government, there should be equivalents of “Nader’s Raiders” to investigate the operations of city government from the mayor’s office on down. These investigations will determine the legal or declared responsibility of each agency, and check its track record. This type of investigation will uncover little omissions, such as the omission of a municipality to have the decibel machinery necessary to back up a zoning resolution. It will also lead to the possibility of lawsuits against mayors and police and license and other commissioners for failing to act according to the rules.
If for whatever reason you cannot take overt action, don’t give yourself an ulcer. Make photographs of the noisemaker and the noise source and throw darts at them. Or make up your own “coloring book”:
This is the Smith Family. They’ve lived in noisy cities all their lives. They don’t mind–anymore. They are deaf now. They can’t hear music, birds chirping, the wind in the trees.
They can barely hear speech. Color them a sad color.
This is a bureaucrat.
He awards contracts. He doesn’t bother to include “quiet” specifications. He lives where it is quiet.
When he leaves government, he hopes to work for the noisemaker. Color his heart indifferent gray.
Once people become committed to fighting noise, the question of goals must come up. There is no absolute answer, no inflexible decibel level to permit. Nevertheless, between the current acoustic anarchy and the ideal, there is room for an initial step that offers better than a modicum of protection. Somehow or other we managed to select that first highway speed limit, modifying it with experience.
In 1966, after Baden-Baden noise congress, I had the opportunity to be the guest of an eminent European acoustician, a man responsible for some of the most progressive noise criteria on the Continent. I had a question for him.
“How do you arrive at decibel levels for your noise laws?”
This great scientist, who is also a great humanitarian, looked at me with a twinkle in his eye, and replied: “I pick a number.”
He quickly continued when he saw my startled reaction.
“Yes, I pick a number. Once we have a starting level, through experience, from the reaction of the noisemakers and the public, we can make the necessary revisions. I have been using this system for many years, and not only has it worked for my country, my criteria are used as the basis for similar legislation in other countries in Europe.”
A thoughtful society acts to provide at the very least an environment which is aurally comfortable, free of excessive annoyance and physiological harm. There should be an immediate goal of protecting the sleep of all, but certainly the ill, the aged, the mother and child at home. There must be “oases of quiet.” Night workers who sleep during the day need a quiet bedroom.
Concern for privacy is a manifestation of a relatively sophisticated, thoughtful society. Primitive man and people living under dictatorships fail to enjoy privacy. (The dictator, of course, is surrounded by privacy.) Home must provide more than shelter from rain and cold. The right to privacy, rest, and sleep must not be left to the discretion of Pan Am, GM, and the neighbors.
From mankind’s point of view all machines to which human beings are exposed should be designed for quiet operation. All enclosures in which humans live, work, or play must be designed–or redesigned–to keep out noise intrusion.
Stated as a set of principles, the goal of noise abatement is:
- The man-made environment is to be adapted to the needs of living creatures, not the reverse.
- Human considerations are to come before economic considerations.
- Noise exposure is to be in moderation. Undue stress on physiological and psychological processes is not to be tolerated.
- Machines, like well-mannered children and servants, are to be seen and not heard.
- Noise abatement is to be recognized as an ideal, a point of orientation in decision-making. Like democracy, the ideal may never be achievable, but it helps create a framework in which society can function for the best interests of man as a social and political animal.
Once noise abatement in the human interest is adopted as policy, the details will fall into place. The first step in that direction is to erase all preconceived notions of who is responsible for what, and the narrow view that only specialists have the basic answers to human problems. The President of the United States should appoint a blue-ribbon panel to investigate the entire sphere of occupational noise, its members not connected in any way with industry or the military. We must put an end to the tyranny of the “expert” as the man who sets all the rules. It is for the public to determine the goals for a quieter environment.
The Federal government should convene a National Congress of Parties of Interest. The three elements of this Congress would be government, the public, and commerce and industry.
After basic preparation, each of the three groups should convene separately to hammer out the details. Government, on its part, should convene a National Congress of Governments.
At this meeting the three levels of government–local, state, and Federal–would thrash out an over-all program for noise abatement. The details of guidelines, codes, enforcement and research needs would be spelled out and a plan evolved for providing all government units with the necessary testing facilities without unnecessary duplication. A permanent Intergovernment Noise Abatement Council would be established to act as liaison within government, and to represent government at the final Congress of Parties of Interest.
At this ultimate Congress all should agree on and adopt a Noise Index. To arrive at this Index, an arbitrary baseline would be developed from an analysis of noise in the natural environment. To this “ideal” would be added the increments to account for the unavoidable, and the desirable sounds of living and working together. No sound-producing product or piece of equipment would be allowed into the environment which could destroy the intent of these guidelines. In evaluating the noise emission of a given product, account would be taken of the other noise emissions that would co-exist with the product in question. It makes no sense to set a given decibel limit for a single motor vehicle without acknowledging that a highway or a city will be exposed to millions of such vehicles.
No machine should be permitted that as a normal function of its operation destroys sleep, the ability to converse, or rest, or that causes repeated abnormal physiological changes within the body. Common sense will be necessary. A machine that will not operate during the night will not have to be as quiet; by the same token, a machine that operates both day and night will have to be designed to operate as if it always operated at night.
Once government assigns a top priority to noise abatement it must establish a noise abatement function with the responsibility and the authority to oversee all government planning and actions that modify the noise environment. At the present time the various existing agencies are jockeying for control of this field.
Fearful of the powers of a central agency, some would prefer to keep noise abatement as a fragmented operation of government. Is it logical to give the responsibility for eliminating hovercraft noise to the FAA if the craft operate 18 inches above the ground, and to the state police if they operate closer to the ground, and to the marine agencies if they operate above water? The Federal Council for Science and Technology recommends there be no central mechanism.
But today there is no instrument of government on any level capable of performing an effective noise abatement function. The answer may be a Department of Ecology. But this remains to be developed after the new ecology is clearly defined, and the definition includes man in his artificial environments, as well as man in relation to grass, trees, insects, and mountains.
For the immediate future, the Public Health Service offers one practical answer. It has a pilot program to learn from: the National Air Pollution Control Administration, an agency of the Consumer Protection and Environmental Health administration of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
A pro-people noise abatement program will be so radical, it will be necessary to train a new corps of noise control experts. We are going to have to teach our engineers the principles of design for quiet. It was a shock–and the world of noise abatement is one shock after another–to discover that engineers are not being taught the elements of noise control.
We are going to have to teach noise abatement in the technical high schools. At the present time noise control is limited to graduate students, either in physics or in engineering. For basic urban monitoring and enforcement, a program on the high school level may be adequate. We turn out automobile mechanics and radio and TV repairmen in our high schools; there is no reason why we cannot train noise control technicians at that level. The Zurich Police Office of Noise Control is staffed by men who have received one year of noise-abatement instruction at the hochschulle. To meet the needs of everyday noise abatement we will need thousands of technicians, far more than the handful of men exposed to noise training in graduate courses or in the defense and space programs.
Courses of instruction will include traditional decibel techniques, plus lectures on the purpose of man and government, the social sources of noise, and the ecological consequences; lectures by independent medical and other researchers on the extra-auditory as well as the auditory effects of noise–and more.
Regulatory officials, planners, department heads, highway design and transportation officials should graduate from this program with a belief that the city should not remain what Lewis Mumford calls a “tyrannapolis.” An esprit de corps should be developed in this student body, a sense of dedication to a cause almost as exciting as space exploration, and much more difficult to pursue.
Once dispersed to their duties, the men working in the government sector should be encouraged in their loyalty to the novel objective of putting people first. Regulations should be established to remove any potential for conflict-of-interest between top policymaking members of regulatory bodies and the industries they regulate.
A corps of noise abatement specialists with a zeal for their work will reduce the need for detailed legislation. They will find it possible to quiet the noisemaker in the absence of a specific law, and to enforce noise abatement law without fireworks. In their attitude of partnership for maximum tranquility, these men must think of themselves as educators in a new field, not as police.
To hear what’s going on, all levels of government should institute some form of noise monitoring.
If the chief sources of excessive noise, such as aircraft, cannot be designed to operate quietly for another fifteen years or so, we must restrict the number of intrusions. Psychoacousticians tell us that annoyance from aircraft noise is the result of a combination of the amount of noise and the number of exposures. The number of flights, especially in the critical early morning and evening hours, must be curtailed. The new airbuses make this economically feasible–if the aviation industry is not permitted to continue to schedule the same number of flights per day as it does with the smaller aircraft.
If the automotive industry forces us to live with existing truck levels, then we have no choice but to reduce motor vehicle speeds on highways adjacent to residential and other noise-sensitive areas.
If the construction industry drags its feet, the operating hours for noisy equipment should be reduced each year until the ban is complete. Let industry adjust to “acceptability” criteria for a change, and we will discover that it prefers to design quieter products.
The Federal government should provide adequate in-house testing facilities. It should fund the expensive laboratories needed by the universities if they are to contribute to developments in architectural and engineering noise control. These research facilities will make it realistic for the scientist to work in the public interest without economic sacrifice. It is unrealistic to expect noise experts to serve as the social conscience of the noisemaker if his contracts are their main source of livelihood.
The human response to noise should be investigated in its totality. We must expand surveys beyond personality and economic class inputs. The absurdity of designing lawn mowers of different noise levels for different levels of income and education should be eliminated.
We must develop a mechanism for evaluating the immediate and long-range impact of innovation. We must, for example, understand the mechanisms by which amplified music turns people on. Can we define a pleasure-level which will permit the desired effect of euphoria or frenzy without hearing damage?
We must perform multi-mix research to determine the effect of noise when other stresses are present. It is one thing to be exposed to noise in the tranquility of a testing lab, and another to be exposed to the same noise in home or office.
Such research requires teams of multi-disciplinary specialists. We must augment the work of the acoustician and the ear doctor with that of the heart doctor, the neurologist, the psychiatrist. Sociologists, anthropologists, artists and philosophers should be working with engineers to define the ideal acoustic environment.
If we are to humanize the cost/benefit ratio, we must know the facts of the costs of noise control and the social and other costs of excessive noise. It should no longer be possible for an educated and respected acoustician to tell me with a straight face that to go beyond the state-of-the-art will bankrupt the nation.
If studies show that a given industry cannot afford noise reduction, and the product is necessary, there is no reason why the principle of subsidy couldn’t be applied. We subsidize industry for national security. Why not for human security?
In Dr. Vogt’s words: “…We are a practical people and prone to demand that if a thing does not have a cash value it should at least be ‘good’ for something. What is a sunset good for?
…Or the ringing of tiny bells beneath the ice of a January brook? The quiet of a remote forest when even the insects are still? Isn’t it a sufficient good that they delight a man’s eye, and nose and ear, quiet the spirit and stretch the mind?”
A race that has learned to kill silently, can and must learn to build silently. Man must become ashamed of the primitive techniques he uses to shape, break, and rotate physical objects.
The research of NASA and DOD should be culled for civilian use. That silent submarine engine belongs in our garbage trucks as well.
Research into electric and fuel-cell power sources for civilian use must be encouraged. Such research could go beyond motor vehicles, and provide quieter power plants for construction equipment.
Government should sponsor extensive research in architectural acoustics. Can buildings be shaped to avoid the canyon-like reverberations typical of streets lined with tall buildings?
Research into noise law must include questions such as whether noisemaking should be criminal or administrative law, enforced only by police, or special inspectors, or whom.
Just as we do research on what kind of punishment will be a deterrent to crime, we need research on what kind of punishment will deter the crime of noise. Small fines may encourage the noisemaker to continue polluting. Large fines may keep sympathetic judges from convicting. The ideal enforcement provision is the power to close down a noisy operation until proper noise controls are instituted. This can be done with construction noise in Germany and in Switzerland. The Zurich police told me that in some cases construction work was stopped for as much as two weeks until the contractor came up with the required noise reduction.
It might be productive to explore forms of ostracism. Construction companies should be required to post signs saying something like “This noise may be injurious to susceptible people. It is probably making our workers deaf. But it is legal. If you don’t like it, move.” At the bottom of this copy should be the name and address of the company’s top executive.
Convicted horn honkers should be required to adorn their cars with a warning sticker: “I drive with my horn instead of my head.” Horn tooters could lose the use of their cars for one week or more.
One thought for education horn honking drivers is the setting of “horn traps.” These should be set up at night in locations where horn honking is a constant irritant. Volunteers should cooperate with the police to serve as witnesses. A floodlight system should be arranged at a given corner. When the horn honking starts, on go the lights and the volunteers serve as witnesses while the police write the tickets. For more effective enforcement, the muffler and horn-blowing provisions should be taken out of the overcrowded courts and placed in special administrative courts.
All cities should be encouraged to adopt a model anti-horn code to be promulgated by the Department of Transportation. Warning signs should be posted on city sidewalks and at all entrances to a city, such as bridge toll stations and main arteries. All beginning drivers and those who write in for license renewal should be given a copy of the horn (and muffler) law. Safety testing stations should be able to test horn emissions to see they do not exceed set criteria.
As for sirens, we must address ourselves to that balance of equities which requires that thousands be disturbed in the pursuit of errands of mercy. Are more lives taken by speeding fire apparatus, police cars, and ambulances than are saved by this practice?
Truck drivers and motorcyclists must be studied. If they do gut out mufflers because they believe that a lack of intense noise denotes a lack of power, the public has a right to know. Our enforcement agencies must learn how to convert the superstitious driver to orthodox respect for quieter operation.
A center-city V/STOLport should not be created without a thorough investigation by all parties at interest, not only government agencies working for the vested interests. The burden of proof of environmental compatibility must be on the promoter. It should not be necessary for the public to scrounge for evidence of a potential hazard. Potential polluters should be required to post a performance bond guaranteeing that noise levels in homes, schools, and hospitals will not be exceeded, and that should the ambient noise level be reduced and his aircraft noise emissions stick out like a sore thumb, they too will be reduced.
The public hearings for heliports and other major innovations are usually like lynch law, the decision made in advance and the victim hanged promptly after the “due process.” Provision must be made for expert input from a noise abatement agency, and for cross-examination by all parties of interest. There is nothing more frustrating, and nothing that worse serves a democracy, than to listen to publicly made misstatements without being in a position to refute them publicly.
I do not believe in retreat, but the least that should be expected is that all enclosed spaces be soundproofed at the promoter’s, or if a public necessity, the government’s, expense. Innocent victims of “legal” noises must be indemnified for any and all costs. This principle will speed up the process of discovering and applying noise control to transportation and construction.
Just as the law now requires landlords to provide a minimum of thermal protection, so it must require that tenants receive needed acoustic protection. Enjoyment of property must also include the right to make noise. This means that dwellings must be built to contain sound. Instead of a “quiet” room as some suggest, why not a “noisy” room, where one can make noise to one’s heart’s content? The design would be the same as for the “quiet” room, but the whole concept would be a new dimension in civilized living.
The “quiet enjoyment” clause should be interpreted to mean that all living space shall be noise-rated. An apartment without adequate provisions for noise insulation would be rated second class, and its rent would not be as high as that of a first class apartment.
Building owners or operators whose tenants are exposed to a long-term disturbing noise after a lease is signed would be held responsible for maintaining that “quiet enjoyment” clause. They would be required to install soundproofed windows if necessary, and air conditioning if it became necessary to keep windows shut. If they failed to maintain a tranquil apartment they would be required to reduce the rent during the period of noise intrusion. If a tenant is forced to move, he should be reimbursed for the cost of moving, including the cost of looking for a new apartment.
In other words, a landlord should have an economic stake in preventing new noise sources from polluting the community.
The landlord, in turn, would be reimbursed by the private or government agency responsible for the noise. This reimbursement could be in the form of a tax reduction, or a fixed sum of money for each month of the noise intrusion.
The principle that the polluter must pay needs to become part and parcel of public policy. Already it has backing ranging from the prestigious President’s Science Advisory Committee to Life Magazine. Life editorialized that the businessman should not expect someone else to clean up or live with the refuse he creates. Noise is a waste product, and the polluter should be responsible for maintaining the acoustic quality of a given environment, or at the very least soundproofing the structure he is invading.
When I protested the money the United States and the Soviet Union are pouring into space exploration, a well-read, intelligent executive explained to me that nations must express the need to compete, and that mankind is much better off if that need is expressed in trying to get to the planets first rather than on the battlefield. Fine. Let us introduce this sense of competitiveness into the environmental arena. In 1966 I suggested to the IVth International Congress for Noise Abatement that the various nations form a Decibel Olympics. A competition would be held to determine who has developed the least polluting construction techniques, transportation modes, appliances, and so forth. Awards and bonuses from both private and governmental sources should be plentiful.
This Olympics would include other than physical objects. One section would be devoted to the best in noise laws and regulations, industrial standards, legal concepts, public relations, and educational techniques.
As I write this I am thinking of an elderly woman living alone in a public housing project. The tenant above her, a drummer in a rock’n’roll group, not only practices at random but stages full dress rehearsals in his home, and his downstairs neighbor has no recourse but to endure.
There are untold thousands of similar cases across the country, involving the sick as well as the elderly. They are helpless, whether in hospitals or isolated in their individual apartments or homes. It is essential for them to have somebody to turn to. Neighborhood urgency squads should be created to explore the possibilities, bring moral pressure, and at least figuratively hold the victim’s hand.
Members of such a squad should include a doctor, a psychologist, a lawyer, and a clergyman. They should bring the victim’s plight to the attention of the community and publicize the names of city officials who refuse to intercede. These squads could be useful in alleviating the strain when noise victims are afraid to deal directly with noisy neighbors. There is no reason why the clergymen members could not bring these noise cruelties to the attention of their congregations. Given the moribund state of today’s noise laws, the well-publicized reports of such specialist squads could do much to effect change.
Women should play a key role in these urgency squads, taking the lead in ostracizing neighborhood and commercial noisemakers. Perhaps they could come up with an American version of the technique reportedly used in Swaffham in Norfolk, England, where noisy neighbors are warned that if they don’t mend their ways they will be moved into an old army hut in the country without running water and electric lights.
Women should demand that the National Commission on Product Safety investigate noisy toys, and lead in a boycott of potentially harmful toys.
Women must assume part of the responsibility for noise abatement. Not only is their own well-being at stake, but the responsibility for protecting their husbands from occupational noise falls squarely on their shoulders. It is evident that government will not voluntarily move to effectively preserve even the sense of hearing. Women can help arouse public opinion against an industry that makes deafness the price of progress. The labor movement would be indebted to women if they interceded with management.
Given incentive, the human mind is inventive enough to design for quiet. The public does not have to spell out how quiet. It does have to communicate to government and to the manufacturer that it wants a quieter environment. Then it would become corporate policy not to make, buy, or sell equipment above a certain noise level. Engineering and acoustical expertise plus common sense would achieve a comfortable, non-destructive environment.
Noise is not the price of progress.
Noise is not the inevitable by-product of technology.
Noise is the price you and I pay for greed and insensitivity, and our own indifference.
A quieter world is possible, if…we don’t take noise for an answer.
* For a cease and desist order, supply the name of the carting company and the time and date they were making the noise.
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