Aural Redlining

In a film version of Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf, one scene of Harry Haller's (Steppenwolf's)madness seemed almost reasonable to me, as a nearby resident of I-64. Harry positions himself and his howitzer on a ledge above a road, from which he fires at passing cars. In his case, he wanted to do battle against the, then recent, incursion of the automobile into modern life. In my case, I just wanted to be able to sit on the front porch and carry on a conversation without the odious noise from the passing trucks. At times they sounded so loud it seemed possible they might be airborne and headed straight for the house. Clearly it was a problem in need of a solution, albeit somewhat less spectacular than Harry's.

So, about ten years ago, my wife and I set out into our neighborhood with clipboards and blank petitions to gauge the level of support for sound barriers along I-64. It was overwhelming, perhaps even unanimous, in favor of building the barriers. We walked over a period of about a week and spoke to 50 or 60 people. Since we had gotten such a good response, we contacted the State Department of Transportation and told them what we had done. We were beginning to think that our foray into citizen involvement would pay off when the D.O.T. dispatched someone with a decibel meter to test the level of our pain. The meter was placed on the stoop outside our front door and began to register its findings. Our hopes were dashed ,however, when the tester informed us that the level he was reading was the level the state tries to reach after the sound barriers are built. Back to the drawing board, and a few inquiries about mail-order ordnance ( it's doable but the shipping and handling will eat you up).

As the years have passed, the annual mandated hearing tests at work have continued to show that I have "moderate" hearing loss in my right ear. (That's the ear, when sitting on the porch, that faces Ike's Folly.) So it was like a bolt out of the blue when last October I received a letter from State Representative Bill Cochran. It seems he had been in contact with the Commissioner of the State Department of Transportation about a noise barrier. More or less concurrently, Indiana's le petit chief executive has sold off mile upon mile of our infrastructure. The resulting boon, approximately three billion dollars, should now be available to address some of the needs and desires of the state's citizens.

Just the other day I was walking (campaigning) in the west end, along Main Street. The aerial bombardment of noise from I-64 as it passes above Main and Market Streets is so loud that conversation is difficult. I have written of the need for stronger code-enforcement and Challenge Zones as some of the ways to revitalize the older parts of town. Based on my walking in that neighborhood, I'm suggesting that one of the surest means of making those areas more attractive is the construction of noise barriers. The noise is an insult to people living near the highway; it is a statement that those who control the highway system simply do not care about the people affected by it.

Interestingly though, if you drive through many affluent areas, in Louisville and along I-65 in Indiana, you will see noise barriers already built or under construction. It is time we, in New Albany, push for noise barriers along all interstate highways in residential areas. Noise is a pollutant that is damaging to health. It can cause concentration to suffer which has obvious effects on learning in children. It undermines the property values of houses in its path. It is not too much of a stretch to see this as a class issue when one observes where noise barriers are being built and where they are not being built.