By Wang Hairong

Quieting Noisy Traffic Expanding modern urban transportation system causes great disquiet

By Wang Hairong

It was a beautiful day in Beijing’s Haidian District. Ms. Wang was about to open the window for a breath of fresh air, but as soon as she did, the rumbling of passing vehicles drowned out the sound of her TV.

The window of her high-rise apartment faces a highway leading to the Badaling section of the Great Wall in the city’s northern suburb. While this traffc artery gives people easy access to the famous tourist destination, its noise troubles those living too close.

Wang’s home is about 50 meters from the highway. A garden lies between the highway and residential buildings in the community. Wang said that the trees may divert some of the noise from reaching lower levels of the buildings, but honking horns and rumbling engines still vex the upper levels.

Wang said that the noise was tolerable when she moved into the community in 2004, but it has worsened as traffic has become denser.

At night, the racket grows even louder as heavy trucks enter the city via the highway. Local residents said that they sometimes were awaken by blaring horns.

According to the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, the community’s noise level reaches 75.3 decibels during the day and 76.1 decibels at night. Both fgures exceed the national acoustic environment standards of 70 decibels during the day and 55 decibels at night for sound-sensitive venues such as hospitals, schools, research institutes and residential buildings at roadside.

Louder disturbance

High-volume noise is known to cause various health problems such as hearing impairment, cardiovascular diseases, lower cognitive ability and anxiety.

Noise pollution is the second most complained about form of pollution in China, according to the China Environmental Noise Prevention and Control Report released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) in February. The report shows that 36 percent of all the letters received by environment protection authorities in the country complain about noise pollution.

Noise levels beside urban roads at night tend to be high in China. In 2010, noise stayed under the national standard in only 37.3 percent of the monitored urban road sections in the country, the report said.

Road noise monitoring is conducted at points on pedestrian walks 20 cm from the closest automobile lanes, away from other non-traffc noise sources and usually at least 50 meters from an intersection.

Large cities such as Beijing are faced with surging traffic volume, denser subway lines and more and more frequent air flights. The sound of traffc has disturbed many residents.

On February 16, the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau announced that Beijing’s automobile ownership reached 5.015 million, and more than 90 percent of the roads in the city were saturated or super-saturated.

About 1 million Beijing residents are exposed to noise pollution along major roads, according to the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.

Some residents once surveyed the traf-fic volume of a section of the Beijing-Tibet Highway between Shangqing, Qinghe and Xiaoying bridges in Haidian District at 9:20 a.m., and found that within a minute, about 350 automobiles passed, each contributing to disturbing levels of noise.

Noise levels beside urban roads at night tend to be high in China. In 2010, noise stayed under the national standard in only 37.3 percent of the monitored urban road sections in the country

Difficult treatment

Noise can be reduced at the source, in the transmission process, and at the reception end. According to experts, measures to buffer noise during transmission include setting up noise barriers and green belts, as well as adopting soundproof design and sound-insulating doors and windows to protect noise-sensitive buildings. To control traffc noise at the source, such measures as improving vehicle design, enhancing road maintenance and imposing restrictions on horn use should also be taken.

noiSY HigHWAY: Residential buildings stand close to a busy and noisy highway in Beijing

Different departments are responsible for implementing the measures in China. In some cases, it is easy to identify who should be responsible for what, but not always. For instance, it is clear that automakers and operators of traffc facilities should provide low-noise products. But agencies managing traffc facilities and property developers often disagree on who should be responsible to install soundproof facilities due to fnancial concerns.

To govern noise pollution, China adopted the Law on Prevention and Control of Ambient Noise Pollution on October 29, 1996, which became effective on March 1, 1997.

Article 37 of the law states, “Developers of noise-sensitive buildings along existing traffic trunk lines in cities should, according to relevant regulations, set some distance between the buildings and the traffic lines and take measures to alleviate or avoid the impact of traffc noise.”

But according to the article immediately preceding it, if traffc facilities are not planned reasonably and fail to leave suffcient distance to buffer noise, then transport agencies should be responsible for erecting noise barriers and taking other measures.

Article 36 says, “If the planned expressways, overhead roads and light rails pass through existing noise-sensitive buildings and may cause noise pollution, noise barriers should be set or other measures should be taken to keep the ambient noise under effective control.”

Nonetheless, before the law went into effect in 1997, construction on the Beijing-Tibet Highway had already started. Though some sound-sensitive buildings along the road already existed, noise barriers had not yet been erected.

In recent years, traffic volume on the highway has skyrocketed. After 2008, more and more homeowners complained about road traffic noise, a property manager surnamed Zhang in a community near Qinghe Bridge told theBeijing Morning Post.

The properties Zhang managed were constructed after the completion of the nearby highway. As required, the real estate developer installed sound-insulating windows for rooms facing the highway. Even so, local residents still suffer from noise pollution in outdoor spaces or when they open their windows for ventilation in summer.

Residents requested to have noise barriers installed along the highway, and in response, the Beijing Municipal Environment Protection Bureau sent staff members to inspect the highway. But they found that installing noise barriers along the highway between Shangqing and Xiaoying bridges is unfeasible because there is not enough room for additional soundproof facilities.

As a result, the Beijing Municipal Government published in 2007 a policy on traffic noise prevention and control, which clearly requires real estate developers to leave a proper noise buffering distance and meet relevant standards on noise levels.

“Once traffic noise pollution emerges, it is hard to treat, and sometimes there are absolutely no conditions for treatment”, says the Technical Policy for Prevention and Control of Pollution Caused by Ground Traffc Noise issued by the MEP in 2010.

The ministry said that the fundamental way for controlling traffc noise pollution is to prevent it through rational planning.

“If vibration and noise control is not included in long-term planning, the cost of retrofitting soundproof facilities or relocating residents will be astronomical,” said Hao Ruyu, Vice President of the Beijingbased Capital University of Business and Economics, who has long been concerned with noise pollution.

Data from the MEP show that, between 2005 and 2010, Beijing invested more than 180 million yuan ($28.57 million) to control traffic noise, benefiting more than 100,000 people.

On April 1, Beijing published a standard on subway noise and vibration control, which stipulates that noise control measures should be taken to protect noise-sensitive buildings within 50 meters of light railways. It says vibration and noise control facilities should be designed, built and put into use simultaneously with new subway lines.

wanghairong@bjreview.com