Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Europe Begins Noise Mapping Effort

Posted by Hemos on from the mapping-of-a-different-ssort dept.

Makarand writes "The European continent has begun its fight against noise pollution by initiating a program to map noise levels for cities in the European Union with more than 250,000 people. As placing microphones on every building in London or Paris to measure noise was not practical, data on the amount of traffic carried by roads and the noise levels was fed into computers to generate a model of noise levels across the city. The model's accuracy was verified by taking readings with microphones at 100 points in the city and was found to be accurate on average to within 1 decibel. The noise maps will allow planning to insulate the public from noise by directing traffic away from residential areas and making funds available to sound-proof thin walled homes."

7 of 381 comments (clear)

  1. Rich country? by ObviousGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sometimes I wish the U.S. government wasn't spending so much trying to build up the military and instead redirect those funds to building up the national infrastructure.

    It especially pangs me when I read about things like this where the British government is spending lots of excess government funds on sound-proofing people's homes.

    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
    1. Re:Rich country? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ummm... Did you even think before you posted, or do you just like to bring politics into every possible discussion? Europe has a much higher population density, therefore you can expect noise problems to be worse. I'm from Canada, but I don't recall hearing people from the US ranting and raving about the "noise pollution". It's barely been touched on by the media.

    2. Re:Rich country? by ThogScully · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I know this is Slashdot, but don't you ever go outside? Not much you can do to sound proof your yard, is there. I assume you never open your windows either? Personally, I do both and if I were in England, I would hope the government would be spending a little effort to make living areas a little more liveable.

      Now, I'm from the US, so I can't say if this is useful or not to the areas being investigated because I've never been there and don't know how loud it is. Realistically, there's the potential that this is more of a made up problem and people shouldn't be so concerned as the noise levels don't warrant it. However, just from this article, I'd say that's not an assumption I can jump to.

      You seem to have no trouble jumping to it though.
      -N

      --
      I've nothing to say here...
    3. Re:Rich country? by aallan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Please explain this to me. Someone purchases a house with walls that aren't very sound proof. They presumably knew this at the time of purchase, it would be ridiculous to think otherwise. Someone else spends the time to investigate their choices, and eventually spends more money on a house with more sound proof walls. Why should the person who spent extra to buy a house with soundproof walls now have to pay additional taxes to soundproof someone else's home - someone else who didn't care enough about it to shop for that feature in the first place?

      Welcome to the difference between a pure capitalist economy, and a one where some remenants of socialism still remain. The person buying the sub-standard house might not be able to afford a better one? Why shouldn't our tax money be used to improve their standard of living?

      All this does is encourage people to do the cheapest thing possible, then use some ill concieved government program to clean up the mess afterwards.

      No, it doesn't. The "ill concieved government program" is helping improve the country's housing stock. Eventually all houses will be well sound proofed and you've improved everyone's standard of living. What's wrong with that?

      The problem with far right and the far left is that there are things wrong with both capitalism and socialism. Ayn Rand is just as bad a Karl Marx.

      Al.
      --
      The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
    4. Re:Rich country? by Brad · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A better solution would be to have the homeowners association pay for the sound barriers.

      Within or near city centers many of the effected neighborhoods were built long before the road was expanded or even built. Many were boulivards carrying traffic at sedate speeds before their conversion to multi-lane super-highways that carry a greatly increased volume of vehicles at much higher speeds.

      To follow a slightly different logic: The people using the roads should be the ones paying for them (forget about the lower taxes on diesel fuel used by the large trucks whose relentless pounding destroys the roads). As a direct result of the people using the new road, there is a large increase in noise. Therefore, as part of the roadway's construction or expansion, noise reduction needs to be included to try and mitigate some of the new noise pollution.

  2. Alternative Traffic by fastdecade · · Score: 5, Insightful

    About time noise pollution was taken seriously. But I'd question the solution...Instead of just diverting traffic, hopefully they look at reducing noisy types of transport and encouraging more quiet forms ---- e.g. light rail, bikes.

  3. Re:traffic.equals(noise) returns false by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 5, Insightful

    According to the article, 100 microphones do, and they agree within 1 decibel.