Awais Nayyar 

                                                                   Noise pollution

   Noise Pollution is a way bigger problem than we think and seriousness should be shown by everyone in order to control it. In the article “Noise Is New York City’s Biggest Civic Complaint. Researchers Are Trying To Help Turn It Down” the author Robin Young and Karyn Medzon explains one of the biggest issues in the New York City (Noise pollution).  The article asserts that, due to the dense population of traffic cause increases in the noise pollution. Other heavy transportation like airplanes and helicopters are playing their important role to maximize it. In this article they talk about the organization called SONYC (Sound of New York City) and their goal is to monitor, analyze and mitigate urban noise pollution in New York City. They place sensors around the city having a microphone and chip that detect the sound and frequency of sound which collect information about different kinds of noise pollution including drilling, sirens, dogs bark, and car horns. They will provide this information to the city agencies so they help to control and help New Yorkers from noise pollution. The article mostly deals with noise sensor, how to improve them and what steps should be taken to reduce that.

  

   Robin Young is  a Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker who has also reported for NBC, CBS and ABC television. The author explains how organizations like SONYC is trying to help New Yorkers to reduce the noise pollution . As it states in the article that “The project, called Sounds Of New York City (SONYC), involves placing sensors around the city to record 10-second sound clips. The audio is uploaded onto a website where citizen scientists can help identify them. SONYC also relies on artificial intelligence, as computers get better and better at identifying the sounds on their own. The goal is to help the city’s Department of Environmental Protection mitigate against noise pollution.” This shows the audience how this organization is involved in it and how they are working on this issue to make our environment pollution free. The people they want to target is basically all the citizens or those who goes through this everyday. And I can put myself as an audience because I deal with this everyday, I live close to Laguardia Airport and the noise of airplane annoys me everytime. As it’s been said in the article that 9/10 people in NYC are suffering through Noise pollution everyday. And long-term damage of being exposed to loud noises kills the upper registers in your hearing. So it has physical as well as environmental effects. So this article is written for those in New York who are exposed to this pollution and wanted solution for this. 

 

  The article has a pragmatic and informative tone as well as the author is straightforward with the topic at hand. She informs us about various things like how they collect data and how they work on it. As it says  “So far, there are about 130 million recordings, with only about 10,000 annotated. But those 10,000 help the SONYC computers learn to identify others.” so it is a big organization with a lot of other scientists working on it and finding out the types of noise pollution in New York City, so with the help of city agencies they can reduce it by educating city people.  The purpose of this article is to raise awareness for everyone, so people will know what is going on and how it will affect their everyday life. And explain the work of great organizations like SONYC which are helping New Yorkers to fight against noise pollution. And they help City agencies to implement policies to prevent noise pollution in the City. The genre of this is a source based article and the medium is through a website. The stance of this is informative as author author knows what she is talking about and she adds other people thoughts in it. 

Another article from NYtimes “New York Becomes the City That Never Shuts Up”  by Winnie Hu, a citizen who’s disturb by city’s traffic, especially traffic noise. This man Richard McIntosh  is definitely going through a lot. He’s not happy and noise is a big issue for him like other thousands of citizens. Author thinks that the reason for that is the over population in the city as it says “As the city grows more crowded, with a record 8.5 million residents”  and there is an increase in those numbers in everyday bases. And no one literally no one is talking about this issue. It is big like other pollution, it kills you slowly and internally. The city’s noise pollution can be seen to be very annoying. It has resulted to temporary hearing loss which has been a major contribution to stress and sleep loss for many residents in the city. Over a long period of time of exposure to noise pollution, it has led to permanent damage to people’s health. It has also been particularly limiting to business as the noises affect the day to day operations of various businesses as it causes a disturbance. 

If you look around everyone is complaining about this, because it’s big it is killing thousands and many are losing their hearing. Like in the article it says “Noise is the No. 1 complaint,” said City Councilman Ben Kallos, who represents the Upper East Side and has been inundated with hundreds of noise complaints in the past year alone. “We need to take this problem seriously — take it head on without excuses — and give every New Yorker the peace and quiet they need.” and there is another quotation in the article which says “I’ve had two years of absolute violation of my right to peace and quiet,” said Mr. McIntosh that seems really critical right? Thousands of people are going through this every day from traffic noise, air traffic, sirens, dogs barking,  drilling and many more. Some steps should be taken in favor so everyone can live peacefully in the city. 

The article has an informative as well as we can see that the  author was mostly complaining about the noise pollution. He was straightforward and real with his writing, the author includes other people’s views (opinions) on this particular issue, and as far as I know and I’ve read, mostly every citizen living in NewYork City is going through this and you’ll see your friends, family members, teachers, complaining about this. The audience was basically every citizen and the article was to guide them with the real problem so steps should be taken by citizens to fight against noise pollution. In the article author connects himself with the others as he’s tired of noise pollution like other millions of people around the world so we can see that connection in the article. The genre is the article which was posted on New York Times. And the purpose is to educate and spread awareness around NYC so people can stand against noise pollution and make government to take critical steps against it.

Another great article that I found about Noise pollution in New York was “Muting the City: New York’s War on Noise” it’s a great article written by  Cait Etherington. This article is about the noise pollution and New York’s war on this in past decades. Article shows what steps were taken before to reduce the noise pollution in New York and what further steps should be taken now to control it. Like in the article it says “Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, various New York City mayors responded to the noise problem with their own initiatives. In 1986, Mayor Koch introduced “Don’t Honk” signs in designated quiet zones and imposed a penalty on anyone breaking the ordinance (rarely enforced, these signs were finally removed in 2013)” like it says that the mayor of the city introduce the sign board which says Don’t Honk and if someone honks, they had to pay a fine , i think that was an amazing act and I don’t understand why they remove this act from the city. In the other part of the article the author explains what should be done to make city silent and what us as a citizen can do to make NewYork a better and peaceful place to live. 

This article has a very informative and instructive tone. The author build a great impression in the start by saying that New York is not the most loud city in the world but it was one of them, the author created the interest for the readers from the beginning till the end. The author gives timeline in the article from 1900 till now and inform the readers that what steps were taken and what else should be done to improve our living. Ordinary people and citizens were the target of author, she wants to educate them about past and present and make them think about what they can do as a citizen of the United States. The genre is an article from Future New York which was posted on a website, where they explain how they want to help future New Yorkers, who wants to buy any property.

 I choose these articles from different sources, some are newspaper article from NewYork times and some are from website article like SONYC. But there is one thing common in all of them and which is that all the authors have the same objective and you’ll see that all of them are complaining. The tones are informative and straightforward because the authors wants to raise awareness in people so we as individuals can do our best to minimize the noise pollution around us and make it a bigger issue so government can also put their effort to get control over it. The audience in all of these articles are specifically people living in New York and those who get through all of this everyday like the home buyers and the people looking for new apartments. Traffic is a big issue in NewYork and then the construction might be the next, but the thing is that people are getting affected by this some lose their hearing in their early ages and some might get hearing problems. Living in New York is like a rollercoaster and the only time you get to rest is when you sleep and if a person doesn’t get good sleep it means if he/she get distracted by noise of airplanes, sirens and construction that can affect their health and that’s something no one can compromise on. So we as a nation, NewYorkers we should show some seriousness regarding noise pollution or we can do something that can get the attention of the government so they can implement laws regarding noise pollution.

 In another website scholarly article  “Noise Levels Associated With New York City’s Mass Transit Systems” by Richard Neitzel, Robyn R. M. Gershon, Marina Zeltser, Allison Canton,and Muhammad Akram. The tone is very informative and specific. This article specifically talks about New York transit and type of noise and what level of noise is generated from there. They provide with tables explaining the noise in decibels and what level of noise is dangerous for humans. They used noise dosimetry to measure time-integrated noise levels in a representative sample of New York City mass transit systems (subways, buses, ferries, tramway, and commuter railways) aboard transit vehicles and at vehicle boarding platforms or terminals during June and July 2007. And after getting results from all these places, they concluded that the amount of noise generated is considered dangerous for normal ears. In the article it stated that “MTA subways had the highest maximum noise levels on average (90.4 dBA). The highest Lmax level among all platform measurements was at an MTA subway station (102.1 dBA), followed closely by a bus stop measurement (101.6 dBA). The 2 highest Lmax levels among all vehicle measurements were on an MTA subway car (97.8 dBA) and a bus (96.8 dBA). Lmax noise levels were on average about 2 dBA higher at platforms and terminals than in vehicles for 2 transit types (commuter rail and buses) and 1 to 5 dBA lower for the other transit types.” it shows that the level of noise at subways is way deadly for humans and in the end of the article they give suggestions on how to reduce noise pollution especially in the Subways and local transit places. It suggested that the subway’s infrastructure should be maintained, use of quieter equipment and tutorials should be shown to people to educate them and guide the importance of getting rid of it. This article target most of the New Yorkers who use transit and MTA in their everyday life and what precautions they should take to protect their hearing. 

 

 

                                     Personal Opinion

There is a need to come up with a compromise between the need for engaging in construction and development, the exciting nightlife of New York necessary for tourism with the need to ensure peace and quietness. As much as these factors result in noise pollution they are very essential in building and ensuring growth for the city of New York. This can be enforced by having these activities undertaken in a more polite manner that will take into consideration noise pollution for residents and workers in the city.

There is need to reduce sound which comes from construction. The new Noise Code ensures that proper methods of limiting noise from construction sites located in commercial and residential areas are put in place. This is by applying suitable management practices for all activities related to work cites which includes allowing permits responsibly for working at nights and weekends. Requiring the use of noise management plans will be essential in the new Noise Code by requiring the use of sound barriers, noise jackets for the hammers with the aim of reducing noise pollution. Rerouting of certain flights at New York’s LaGuardia Airport may be considered as an attempt to reduce noise pollution. This may be achieved by the Council requesting the Federal Aviation Administration to reduce the number of airplanes touching down at the New York airport. In addition to this the Council may also strengthen existing ways of noise control such as the use of sound meters, towing of vehicles, fines and arrests.

If the problem of noise pollution is allowed to carry on in the city of New York, it will result in a negative effect on many functions of the city that are responsible for the growth of the city. The city will cease to be a good destination for tourists who will not be motivated to visit this city. It will have a negative effect on business as many companies will be forced to close shop since the environment is not favorable for operations. The residential areas exposed to noise pollution will lose value as not many people will be willing to live in these places. Overall the noise pollution in the city affects the health of residents as they are prone to loss of hearing and headaches which may trigger stress and other related psychological problems.

 

                                              WORK CITED

          Hu,Winnie. “ New York Becomes the City That Never Shuts Up”  NYTimes. July 19, 2017

www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/nyregion/new-york-becomes-the-city-that-never-shuts-up.html  Accessed 23 Sep, 2019. 

 

  Young,Robin & Miller,Karyn  “Noise Is New York City’s Biggest Civic Complaint.        Researchers Are Trying To Help Turn It Down” WBUR.org. May 29, 2019      www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/05/29/nyc-sound-noise-sonyc-project, Accessed 15 Sep, 2019. 

 

     Etherington, Cait “Muting the City: New York’s War on Noise” Cityreality.com. June 26, 2018 www.cityrealty.com/nyc/market-insight/features/future-nyc/muting-city-new-york039s-war-noise/4084,  Accessed 23 Sep, 2019.

Neitzel, Richard et al. “Noise levels associated with New York City’s mass transit systems.” American journal of public health vol. 99,8 (2009): 1393-9. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2008.138297  Accessed 29 Oct, 2019.