From "N(J)oisy City," an interview with noise pollution expert Dr. Arline Bronzaft
Noise pollution reflects how far the world is from golden rule, says expert. But people can't stop there.
By D. Menzies
A sign peppered throughout Jersey City (but mostly on its south side) reads “Please be good neighbors, lower the noise after 10 p.m.” even as the city has noise ordinances that disallow a certain level of noise in residential areas well before then. As an anti-noise sign, it’s anemic, below the standards already on the city’s books. But Dr. Arline Bronzaft, an environmental psychologist who’s an expert in noise pollution and its long list of negative effects on one’s health, thinks any sign that tries to dissuade people from doing something harmful has some value. Noise, as Bronzaft, will further explain for this Chilltown Blues piece, is because we don’t live in a perfect world in the first place; and even still, that’s no excuse to get used to it.
“If you're going to pass the ordinance, if you're going to pass the law, you better have the muscle to enforce it, because not only are you making a mockery of the law, you're exposing people to unwanted sounds.”
Signs
Bronzaft lives over on the other side of the New York Bay from Jersey City (aka Chilltown), in New York City. But her expertise and studies (she helped in revising the city’s noise ordinances in 2007) have lead to it being that much easier for some people to rest without intrusive noise in the “city that never sleeps.”
Noise pollution, especially where people are living in disinvested communities, can be so bad that from some vantage points within them loud, obtrusive honking can seem quaint … something we’ve collectively gotten “used to.” Bronzaft has a bone to pick with that term —“getting used to” – but she also recalled a time when there were signs dissuading drivers from honking. After 30 years, in 2013 New York City took the “don’t honk, $359 penalty” signs down, partially because city officials determined the signs’ message wasn’t getting across, according to an NPR report from that time. (Note that the point of the sign was to curb excessive honking, not the occasionally necessary one.)
“When it came to the ‘don’t honk” signs, I really think they should still have been put up and maybe signs should remind people that noise is intrusive,” Bronzaft said. “You will agree that some people think twice and possibly lower their sound. You may be able to get some people, but you would probably say the bulk of them won't.”
I, like those NYC officials back in 2013 reportedly did, would say as much.
Bronzaft was, in fact, quoted in the aforementioned NPR report as a voice speaking to how a sign should only go down because it’s not needed, instead of what critics of that decision to take the “don’t honk” signs down would consider letting standards get lower.
“Do unto others …”
“So much of the noise that exposes us to adverse impacts that affect our health … if people were civil, if people were respectful, if people were kind, we'd have a different world, wouldn't we?” said Bronzaft.
Noise is a good indicator of how much thought the collective we are giving to other people around us, according to Bronzaft.
“I gave a talk to a church group and the reverend thought he was getting the typical academic college professor speaking on the effects of noise on health,” Bronzaft said. “He was shocked when I started quoting the Bible. You should have seen his face.
“... If we really believed, ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,’ we ‘d have a much better world. I'm talking at the right time in our society (as it pertains to the lack of that).”
“The reference I made ... if we really believed, ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,’ we ‘d have a much better world,” Bronzaft continued. “I'm talking at the right time in our society (as it pertains to the lack of that). Not just with respect to noise. So what you're really saying (when criticizing a lack of noise code enforcement) is, wouldn't it be nice if people recognize that their sounds may harm other people? If people really cared about the impact they make on others? Sad to say that we don't have that kind of world, and that's why we must have laws and ordinances.
“But here's the thing. If you're going to pass the ordinance, if you're going to pass the law, you better have the muscle to enforce it, because not only are you making a mockery of the law, you're exposing people to unwanted sounds.”
Bronzaft says this as a co-author of “Why Noise Matters: A Worldwide Perspective on the Problems, Policies and Solutions.” She’s familiar with the way noise affects people at all levels, from the noise from aircraft overhead to the litany of increasing noises on our city streets, from the noise on the “macro-level” in multi-resident dwellings to the noise that comes from electrical devices and the hums of machinery.
All that noise isn’t just affecting people, according to Bronzaft.
In the same way, the human race has acerbated climate change that affects all other forms of life, a noisier world is one that makes animals suffer that much more.
How many more loud celebrations are there per year that send your pets scattering under a table? The same stressful fight or flight response that happens in people when their senses are assailed by noise happens to animals, both in nature and in our homes.
“Getting used to”
In a story on noise I wrote for NJ.com, a professor of earth and environmental studies said that, while intensely dense areas are more noisy, in part, because of that density, it’s probably not a good thing that on some level we’re getting “used to” that noise.
Bronzaft unpacked what that term means as an environmental psychologist.
“The term ‘used to’ … it means you've decided to stop complaining about it because it's going nowhere,” Bronzaft said. “You stop complaining. No one’s going to listen to you, so what's the good of speaking to it? And also you feel helpless.
“So many people in a community are affected by noise, but only a few people will contact me about, let’s say, the building's cooling units that are keeping individuals up at night because people say, ‘No one’s going to listen to me.’”
When people reach out to Bronzaft, sometimes there’s a sigh or relief just from her listening to them, Bronzaft said. “You know … ‘You’ve listened to me. I count.’”
On the other hand, getting “used to” noise “means your body is trying to deal with it,” Bronzaft said. “If a body is trying to deal with some external variables, that means the body is engaged in extra activity and that's harmful. To a body ‘getting used to’ means your body has to learn to deal with it, and that takes work. Getting used to something is harmful to a human being, both psychologically and physiologically.”
If a person is unable to get used to the sound of thunderously loud music they didn’t pay to hear, of engines being gunned to make a modified muffler boom like thunder, that’s reasonable. Having to deal with that minimally should not be a luxury, nor should that be associated with something “high-minded.”
Bronzaft was one of the experts consulted in creating educational modules that teach NYC youth just that, as well as establishing that noise is a great unsung contributor to inequity in education.
Jersey City’s worst noise pollution is either in or around its historically redlined communities, as is not uncommon through the U.S., but with addressing noise complaints delegated primarily to those wards’ busy police forces for whom quality of life issues are not the priority, many residents in them continue to deal with the worst of minimally curbed noise pollution and its adverse effects on their health — even as the city’s municipal prosecutor made it easier for officers to fine noise offenders, according to a city councilwoman.
A local Jersey City man I interviewed for NJ.com said that he believes a small force of “noise officers” addressing noise code offenses in plain audible range would help diminish noise citywide within months. After five years of a neighbor blasting music, the neighbor only stopped because of the rare ticket given out by a police officer responding to a noise complaint. This officer, the man said, had been there before, even attempting to explain to the neighbor just how loud he could play his music without disturbing anyone.
More than a year later, with enforcement minimal around the west side of the city, that source of noise has been slowly returning and raising the volume up again, the man said.
“If a 3 ½ year old can understand …”
Bronzaft relayed a story about her grandson.
“He comes and visits me,” she said. “I live in an apartment, and he would run across the floor. Even though he didn't have his shoes on, I said, ‘People are living downstairs. You're making noise. You can't do that.’ So he didn't. One day I was at his home in Queens, and he ran across his kitchen floor. I looked at him.
“He said. “Grandma, there's a basement. There's no one living under me. I'm not going to harm anybody.’ He understood that. Do you see that a child – 3 ½, nearly four-year-old child – knew that in his house he wasn't disturbing anyone, but in my home he had to walk quietly? That’s a true story, and if he could understand it at that age, we all should be able to understand that. Shouldn’t we all be able to realize this?”
More on curbing noise pollution from Dr. Bronzaft here: www.nj.com/hudson/2024/09/enforcement-efforts-can-reduce-loud-noise-problems-psychologist-says.html
