October 8, 2008
Psychological, physical harm due to Excessive Noise?
Yay, slow news day story! According to NBC3, folks in the Tenderloin (AKA the Uptown Tenderloin Historic District) and SoMa face "psychological and physical" harm due to noise pollution. The San Francisco Public Health Department says that the urban sounds filling city streets (i.e., traffic) can cause high blood pressure, heart disease, depression, and digestion problems. Yikes. SF is currently looking at measures to reduce traffic,the main cause of said loudness. (NBC3)
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Oh no! There's noise in the big city? Guess it's time to pack up and move back to the country, where it's nice and quiet.
I'd say by and large it's a lot quieter in urban areas than it used to be for no other reason than the fact that cars are a lot quieter due to regulation. But it's true there are other factors that could be improved. Namely the outrageous noise levels within restaurants.
To complain about noise from traffic in a city seems a little city. You simply can't rid the city of traffic and firetruck sirens.
However, you can rid the city of unnecessary noise: car alarms, asshole harleys, (and PLEASE spare me the "loud pipes save lives" bullshit), etc.
If they could also get the sunset scavenger guys to quit screaming to each other at 5 a.m., that'd be nice. The noise from their trucks, the noise from the garbage cans, that's to be expected. Hearing dudes yelling "FUCK" to each other at 5 a.m.? They can actually do something about that (not that I mind the cursing, it's just the volume I slightly object to).
Correction: to complain about traffic in a city seems a little SILLY.
SFGate's version of the story says
"The San Francisco Department of Public Health has ranked "highly annoyed" areas of the city - neighborhoods it says have noise so loud and so constant it could cause psychological and physical harm."
I think "highly annoyed" is an apt description of SF and its residents most of the time. Lighten up, folks!
I always wonder what neighborhoods the commenters who mock those who complain about noise live in. Do you have to pause every 5 minutes or so in a phone or face to face conversation in your own home b/c even raised speaking voices are drowned out by the police sirens and speeding traffic? Do you have to wear earplugs at night to block out the honking cabs, screaming drunks, shouting garbage men, and excessively loud firetrucks?
If you do, fine, keep telling your neighbors that it's normal and if they don't like it they should move. If not, try it for a month or so and then tell us what you think.
And why do emergency vehicle sirens have to be just as loud at 1 am and 3 am when there's no other traffic as they are at rush hour?
I'm ok with city noise, in fact I like it at reasononable levels (country silence freaks me right out) but in the top few neighborhoods listed in this article, it is indeed excessive and unhealthy. There is a middle ground between the crickets in the country and shrieking sirens in the TL, and I'm glad that at least some city officials are discussing how to make changes.
Affected negatively by the noise of life in the big city? Well, then move! Problem solved, easy as pie! Why is the city wasting it's American dollars on ways to shut up loud mouthed streetwalkers that annoy the overly entitled residents of the Lou Reed inspired urban environments of the Tenderloin and South of Market when the obvious solution to this problem is to round them all up and ship them out to 48th Avenue where there's nothing but Chinese restaurants and fog? This is ridiculous and I smell my sexy, activist style boyfriend Chris Daly all over this nonsense.
Alternately, if you really want to cut down on traffic in the Tenderloin, toss the Chinatown fun ride we're building for the tourists upon the ash heap it so richly deserves and dig the Goddamned Geary Subway already. Pulling the 38 off the street and shoving it down below will certainly help alleviate noise impacts to area residents associated with vehicular traffic. This city, I swear...
All I know is that siren noise was irritating until the minute it was for my friend, who had been stabbed right in front of me. Then it was the sweetest music I'd ever heard.
Another reason I ride critical mass -- it is so quiet in the streets when it is nothing but hundreds of cyclists riding along...
Those would be the same cyclists that go "wooo" at every intersection. Do you ride with your iPod on?
Yeah, I'd call critical mass a lot of things, but quiet isn't one of them. Most of the times I've ridden some dude (or several) has had huge speakers strapped to a trailer that has loud music pouring forth.
Quiet? I thought you had the sound of your own self-righteous sense of entitlement to break the law whenever you felt you were making a point about how bicycles are apparently the only form of transit allowed to use the streets?
Man, we really need to get the pedestrian counter-mass going and start blocking off cross-walks... when we legally have the signal in our favor, of course, and teach the Massers a lesson about who really has the right of way.
I live in the TL and don't mind the sirens so much, but the helicopters this morning at 6:30 were a little jarring... and all for a 10 second news shot of a flipped over truck on Hyde St! Come on!
to me it sounds like a manufactured problem that someone can champion to further their political career. i live in the TL and i usually leave my very large window open every night. i never have problems with noise, and i don't think it has caused me any psychological harm
Newsflash: Busy Streets Are Noisy!!!
I know this is an old post, but those of you saying “it’s a big city, deal with it”, are missing the point. When faced with commonly-accepted civic issues like crime or pollution, do we shrug and say, “big cities have crime/pollution, deal with it”? You, the reader, might, but one of the greatest things about San Francisco is that even though it’s a big city we continually work on making this city a more liveable place for all its residents. Don’t stop now, just because this issue doesn’t affect where you live.
Take SFFD sirens. The sirens are loud. Really loud. Unnecessarily loud. The purpose of a siren is to alert cars that you’re coming, not to awaken every resident you pass by. Why do we take it for granted that, in order to accomplish one, we must allow for the other? Has SFFD proven that the sirens need to be that loud, or did they buy the loudest on the market and install them without asking?
Please, I ask you as San Franciscans to continue to make this city great. Think of what we can do to improve living conditions for an entire community.