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by Arline L. Bronzaft, Ph.D., Board of Directors, GrowNYC, and Co-founder, The Quiet Coalition
In his Gotham Gazette article “City’s Promised Plan for Quality-of-Life Issues Yet to Materialize,” Ethan Geringer-Smith writes that the Citizen Budget Commission’s NYC Resident Feedback Survey results issued earlier this year found that 40.4% of city residents who responded “rated the city’s control of street noise as excellent or good.” Fewer residents in Manhattan, Bronx, and Brooklyn, as compared to Queens and Staten Island, rated control of street noise as excellent or good. This was a 6.1% improvement over the 2008 survey.
One question I have about this finding is this: What is meant by control of street noise? Also, considering Geringer-Smith states that “[o]verall, last year, the number of 311 noise complaints rose to nearly 437,000, up from roughly 260,000 in 2013,” I would like to know more about what types of noises people are complaining about and why wasn’t the improvement in the “control of street noise” reflected in the numbers of noise complaints. Still, Geringer-Smith states that according to the CBC’s data, residents point to noise “…as among the greatest areas of dissatisfaction in the city.”
I hope the questions raised above will be addressed in “a big study” of quality-of-life problems that Deputy Mayor of Operations Laura Anglin told Geringer-Smith her office was conducting. I would suggest that Ms. Anglin reference two studies that I was involved in that looked at different types of noise and how New York City residents’ behavior was affected by these noises, as well as State Comptroller DiNapoli’s report last year on New York City noise complaints.
Ms. Anglin, in an email to the Gotham Gazette wrote that the study’s goal was to seek out solutions. Discussing the adverse impacts of noise on health and well-being in her report would add strength to this goal.
Knowing that City Council recently passed legislation strengthening the regulation of construction noise and being aware of community residents clamoring for less noisy emergency vehicles. as well as researching and writing on the adverse effect of noise on health, I am looking forward to reading the report that will soon emanate from the Deputy Mayor’s office.
