I think cities should become linearly more car hostile every year. No free parking. Single lanes. Large protected bike lanes and walking areas with trees and shade. Prioritize plowing sidewalks and bike ways. Then limit total decibel emissions. Just slowly extricate the parasite from our cities.
The biggest culprits are Dodge and Ford for putting out massively overpowered 5, 6 and even 700 horse powered super vehicles with exhaust that can be set up to make excessive volumes of noise bypassing or even removing mufflers to make the car even more ridiculous. This may be a southern phenom since I live in Atlanta many of my neighbors have been complaining about late night road racing and other stupid crap like 100s of ATVs running the streets in gangs. Check it out <a href="https://youtu.be/xlJAySvoH9M" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/xlJAySvoH9M</a> and <a href="https://www.cbs46.com/news/caught-on-camera-swarm-of-atv-dirt-bike-riders-take-to-streets-of-atlanta/article_743602ac-d84f-11eb-8d35-03181e94e296.html?block_id=1056862" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbs46.com/news/caught-on-camera-swarm-of-atv-dir...</a>. I’ve seen this in person and it’s very scary when you’re pinned in a car with these morons running by.
As a resident of Delft (and originally hailing from Mumbai) I can vouch for the subjective difference in average noise levels one would be exposed to - coming from a bustling city filled with "layers" of various sounds (trains, honks, crowd, etc.) to a town where most of the sound seems to come from people, the difference is considerable.<p>Naturally, Delft cannot be compared to Mumbai (whose population is more than the entire population of the Netherlands), but having had first-hand experience of spending a considerable amount of time in both places, I simply cannot overstate the peace of mind felt with extremely low noise levels. As far as a good solution to noise levels in cities like Mumbai goes, there's a whole lot to be done - and a Delftian approach certainly wouldn't work.
There are definitely degrees to this - engine noise, exhaust noise, tire noise, break noise, etc. Electric cars are very quiet. Motorcycles are usually the other end of the extreme in rattle-your-bones-loud (yeah I know people argue it’s safety).<p>Sensible regulation that affects all cars/motorcycles used in the city (not just new vehicles) would go a long way to improving quality of life for many many people.
Standard passenger cars are essentially silent compared to trucks, busses and trains, unless you are right up next to traffic and they are going over 40ish which doesn’t happen often in a city.
Parklets in U.S. cities can make a significant difference in some areas. There are neighborhoods in SF, LA, NY etc. where restaurants are able to expand into the street area, changing a few parking spaces into outdoor seating.<p>The outcomes are human-friendly sidewalk-friendly areas, and fewer cars in the areas. There are some parklets that also include bicycle racks and skateboard racks, which tend to also encourage alternative transportation and better health. What's especially nice about parklets is that business owners strongly like them because the parklets bring more customers to the areas.
The video mentions porous asphalt as one way to limit road noise. I hadn't heard of that before.<p>I also liked the idea of planting the ground that streetcar tracks run through with grass.
I think part of the problem is that car manufacturers do an extremely good job of reducing noise inside the car. When I'm driving my car, I scarcely hear the noise around me. If I'm running alongside the same street, though, I need noise-cancelling headphones just to hear a podcast. As long as manufacturers can limit the effects of the noise on the driver, there is little incentive for them to limit the noise to the environment in general.
It was only after owning a Tesla that I realized how much of the noise from a car comes from its engine, and not the tires. I'd ballpark around 80%, especially at city speeds (less than 50 km/h).
I just want to point out that the title is completely wrong. Cities are loud, even the places in Europe that have no cars in the core of the city. Music, drunk people, homeless people screaming, roadwork, other construction, etc.<p>Cities are loud because there are a lot of people in a small area.