A Positive Soundscape

Last week’s Talking Headways podcast featured Chris Burdik’s book Clamor which discusses sound and noise in detail and I wanted to bring it back up today not really as a counter to the Washington Post item on electric vehicle generated sounds but as a reminder that there should be more considered of the urban soundscape than just alerting people that you’re coming.

One of the things that came out of the pandemic I think for a lot of people was the understanding at least in cities that cars and traffic makes a lot of noise. You started hearing more birds and could sense a silent calm. For some it was eerie and uncomfortable but for many others it was the first introduction to a world without the noise of constant vehicles.

I worry that if we just continue to layer sounds into the urban environment we will get inundated with more than just road noise from tires and engines but as Chris says on the show and in his book a cacophony. That could include the whirrrr from aerial drones which has been proven scientifically to be very annoying to humans and the individual sound design for every vehicle. Maybe it should be limited to types of vehicles by size so there are only a few overlapping sounds.

I don’t really have an answer per say rather than to encourage people who have the power to make these types of decisions and regulations to think about it. Understand why noise pollution layered on top of a lot of other environmental hazards is harmful to public health.  And that there is a positive way forward that includes sound. It isn’t all nuisance and like we heard about London’s electric bus sounds, it can be additive to a vibrant environment.

***

For this intro post and more news in your inbox every morning, sign up for a two week free trial of The Overhead Wire Daily, our popular newsletter established in 2006.