City “needs noise observatory”
Experts say this city needs a noise observatory and that we missed an opportunity to study the beneficial effects of the relative quiet that accompanied the 2020 Covid lockdown.
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ant6n 13:23 on 2021-08-02 Permalink
Wasnt that a projet electoral promise
Kate 13:30 on 2021-08-02 Permalink
Yes, it was.
Blork 15:33 on 2021-08-02 Permalink
I’m all-in when it comes to studying noise and its effects on well-being (and I do believe the effects are negative) but I’m not sure the “missed opportunity” was as good as this article suggests. The main reason being the pandemic itself.
Whenever you do a study, you need a control against which to measure the thing being studied. In this case, if you’re studying “well being,” then the stresses of the pandemic throws everything off. So you’d be comparing NOISE IN A TIME OF NO PANDEMIC against LESS NOISE IN THE TIME OF A PANDEMIC, and those things don’t line up.
Of course that’s just my first reaction. A closer look might reveal that they could have compared the first three months of the pandemic (pretty noiseless) with the second three months, and then the next three months, or something like that. In all cases, the pandemic is a constant, not a variable. I just don’t know if two or three months is a large enough time frame to see measurable differences.
Joey 16:02 on 2021-08-02 Permalink
Isn’t the point that if a noise observatory had been collecting data during the pandemic, it would provide a benchmark for how noiseless our environment could be? Sort of a lower limit to how quiet things could get without interventions designed to reduce loudness. It’s a missed opportunity in that sense – we could have know how “naturally” quiet our city can get. Don’t confuse this with a baseline – just an interesting moment in which a hopefully once-in-a-lifetime set of circumstances could have been documented. Simiilarly, the curfew months could have provided valuable data on how quiet nights could be if all non-essential activity is forbidden.
dhomas 16:39 on 2021-08-02 Permalink
I think both Joey and Blork are right. To Joey’s point, we could have collected data on how quiet our city could be, definitely. And to Blork’s point, seeing how noise affects us is different during a pandemic as opposed to not in a pandemic. The effect of less noise on, for example, mental well-being would get messed up on account of how the sanitary measures affected mental health.
Kate 16:44 on 2021-08-02 Permalink
I agree with all of you. The first few months of real lockdown were so unusual, and the prospects at that point so uncertain, that comparing it to any other time would show a whole slew of other mental disquiets, I think.
But last summer was blissfully peaceful under the approach path, I have to say.
Blork 19:20 on 2021-08-02 Permalink
I remember noticing how quiet it was at night in April/May 2020. I’d go stand at the end of my driveway and it was like being off in the country somewhere. Mine is already a very quiet street (you might see six cars an hour after dark) but there’s a boulevard about 300 metres in one direction and another one 400 metres in the other. And at night I can even hear the roar from the highways (132 and 20) even though they are kilometres away. But oh, back then, that blissful silence.