
New York Becomes the City That Never Shuts Up - dsr12
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/nyregion/new-york-becomes-the-city-that-never-shuts-up.html
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Hasknewbie
Meanwhile, Hong Kong and Tokyo have higher population density, and they're not
as noisy. These cities have 2 things in common: first, they have top notch
public transportation (especially HK. If you have tried the MTR, Elon Musk's
past jabs at public transportation ring hollow: clearly he _doesn 't know_),
which means much reduced traffic -- it's still busy mind you, but "European
capital" level of busy. And second, they have (or have learnt) that most
essential of things in urban life: etiquette. They know when to shut up. I
will add that around 40% of Hong-Kongers are immigrants, mostly from (much
more noisy & unruly) Mainland China, so clearly that etiquette thing is not
innate and can be learnt.

So I would make the case that if you want a high-density city in the West to
remain tolerable noise-wise, basic regulations are not enough. You need some
'investment', both in the local administration and in the local culture.

~~~
Nav_Panel
Agreed. I used to live near a busy intersection in Brooklyn. Most of the noise
was from cars. But not their engines: their horns.

There was a busy bus stop across the way, and drivers loved to lay on the horn
when a bus would stop for passengers. Because, of course, traffic isn't
moving, better start honking! This is something that basic etiquette would
fix.

~~~
robbyt
I think some cars in NYC have a breaking system is attached to their horn.
They're unable to stop or slow down without the horn also going off.

~~~
qbrass
Wiring the horn to the brake lights was supposed to be a prank. But if the
driver doesn't acknowledge that it's happening, the prank backfires on the
prankster.

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nimbius
as an auto mechanic I've been dying to touch on the subject of how cars and
especially trucks have gotten louder over the years.

\- hard tires that lower rolling resistance but increase noise. this combined
with thin sidewall tires.

\- lax enforcement of the noise ordinance with respect to riced out civic
coffee can exhaust. these are rarer in 2018 as its impossible to install one
without the emission control balking at you.

\- streets that havent been paved since the carter administration

\- heavy trucks with massive turbochargers and oversized "ram" air intakes
(vortec, etc..) to appeal to businesses that want to save fuel costs. Vortec
type intakes especially are deafeningly loud at scale.

\- trucking companies that dont size their loads. Do not send a 53' lowboy
into a densely populated city street. there are quieter options. sub it out to
a millwright or last miler.

\- heavy construction equipment companies that insist if they add catalytic
converters, mufflers, or noise controls theyll have to declare bankruptcy.
Same goes for companies that include the absolute loudest "motion" alarm for
equipment (the beep beep sound.) Im looking at you, Komatsu.

\- Cities that tolerate lax air standards for older construction equipment.
these translate into lax noise standards as well.

\- garbage trucks. Heil brand trucks are absolutely the noisiest trucks on the
planet because they dont include ameneties like bumpers for their skids, or
bumpers for the top of the truck to cushion the bin when it hits the rooftop.
The arm for loading plastic bins was designed by a grad student and it shows.
High speed lift and slam.

~~~
thinkythought
Points 4 and 8 also combine here. The new "green" garbage trucks the vendor in
my city has begun using are so INCREDIBLY loud. Even just the engine noise
from them. The PTO and gearbox noise is just atrocious, tons of turbo noise,
tons of just weird mid frequency resonant whining. They're some of the loudest
trucks i've ever heard, and are basically as loud as monster trucks or
straight pipe hot rods. I'm completely not exaggerating that they're multiple
harley davidson loud, and at a more annoying frequency.

I've gotten like stabbing ear pain from being near one of these accelerating
hard.

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leroy_masochist
This is kind of a dumb article, I grew up on the Upper East Side in the
80s/90s and there was certainly plenty of construction noise.

Car alarms were way more of a nuisance back then as well...Darrell Issa's
voice booming "please step away from the car" every 15 minutes from some
dickhead's souped-up and window-tinted Lexus.

Better title for this article would be, "In Times of Change and Uncertainty,
New Yorkers Still Really Good at Complaining About Everything".

~~~
zjaffee
This is exactly it. I grew up there as well and New York has always been a
loud place, it's a fundamental part of the historic character of the city.

People have always been complaining about the noise and scaffolding from
construction. The culture of the city deeply involves complaining
about/yelling at everything that gets in your way.

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mattlondon
I wonder how much the grid system affects noise transmission?

Being used to London, the first time I went to NYC I was surprised at how far
you could see down the streets compared to London where at best it's a hundred
metres or so before a turn (a few notable exceptions of course)

Do those long open spaces allow noise to travel further?

~~~
scythe
Hopping on this comment, I had wondered about the merits of a grid system
based on parabolic coordinates:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_coordinates](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_coordinates)

which might retain the convenient local regularity of street grids while
preventing the streets from "channeling" wind/noise.

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econ4all
Two words: congestion tax.

It's practically criminal that their mayor and other local figures are opposed
to it.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Criminal to ensure that regular citizens of America and NY can actually drive
down the street?

These taxes are basically a way to exclude vast numbers of people from the
city and embolden systems that cause economic asymmetry.

A 'pure market' solution would involve the streets being largely empty save a
fleet of limos paid for by a tiny fraction of the population.

A lot of New Yorkers would be _happy_ to pay a price to make sure that you
can't drive your car anywhere near them.

How about: every few avenues and streets make them 100% public transit and
have tons of 'no driver' trams running all the time so that anyone can get
anywhere really fast? Get rid of all large cars? And cabs are not a
particularly efficient use of space.

Besides, living in NYC already comes with so many de-facto taxes ...

~~~
pteredactyl
Let's give the state more money to solve all our problems! They have a great
track record too!

~~~
sonnyblarney
Ok then take away the 'state run' subway in American cities and see what
happens? Or take away the 'state managed' roads and highways?

The state is not hugely efficient, but when it comes to these things, it's
largely construction unions and the not-overtly-but-kinda-corrupt construction
firms etc.. Doing any city work costs gazillions unfortunately.

But some forms of public transit (subways, maybe not buses) are as priceless
as the highway system.

~~~
pteredactyl
I don't think it'd make much a difference. But I didn't say take away all
money from the state...

Funny how that's the knee-jerk these days.

From my experience Roads and subways are not being adequately maintained. At
least in the big cities. But I do know every few years we pass a multi-billion
dollar referendum for the BART that goes to... mostly pensions.

~~~
chrisdhoover
And when you point that out you get abuse. There is a very cover your ears and
chant nah nah nah I can’t hear you! Then they counter that baby boomers are
shit.

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CydeWeys
I live in Manhattan and the biggest noise problem to me is from vehicles,
mostly just cars honking their horns for no damn reason. It's hard to imagine
there ever being any effective enforcement of this though, so I'd settle for
reducing the number of vehicles.

Add a congestion charge a la London for all of Manhattan south of 72nd Street,
remove all free on-street parking and replace some of it with a combination of
meters and/or resident-permit-only parking (said permits would not be cheap --
I'm thinking hundreds per month), turn all the rest of the freed up parking
spots into protected bike lanes, and turn a bunch of roads into the most
popular areas into pedestrian plazas like Times Square (or what many European
cities have in their downtowns).

Most people who live in this city _do not drive_ (and cannot, for simple
scaling reasons), and yet the majority of public space is reserved for
vehicles. It makes no sense whatsoever and is a terrible misallocation of very
limited and valuable space.

~~~
vonmoltke
> remove all free on-street parking

Where is there free on-street parking? Certainly not in Midtown. Hell, most
street parking in Midtown is commercial-only during the weekdays.

~~~
CydeWeys
This is in the context of all of Manhattan. Midtown is just one neighborhood
amongst dozens.

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arprocter
The article kind of glosses over it - although construction hours are limited,
'urgent' repairs can still be done at any time

So your Saturday morning alarm clock is a jackhammer at 5am

