The City needs a smarter strategy for designing its soundscape.
In New York City, noise is the number one complaint made to 311, outnumbering the next-closest complaint by more than 200,000 calls per year. And according to the New York State Comptroller’s 2018 report, only 7% of New Yorkers felt positive about the sound of their neighborhood. But the issue of noise receives relatively little political attention. During the four debates leading up to the 2025 mayoral election, for example, only one question was asked about how the candidates would address noise. And the answers were dismal: Two candidates provided no responsive answer at all, and the third (now-Mayor Zohran Mamdani) said only that he would seek to reduce congestion. That is not a bad suggestion, but it was clear that no one running had a comprehensive plan to address the problem. This is the current paradox of noise: It is tremendously important to residents and workers, yet these days it receives little political attention.
Last spring, I was walking my 1-year-old daughter to daycare when an ambulance approached, sirens blaring. I covered my ears, but then thought better, and covered my daughter’s ears instead. The ambulance passed, my ears throbbed, and my daughter cried. I thought to myself, “Do sirens have to be this loud?”
At first, I resisted the urge to look into it. Not my area of expertise; out of my control. But the sounds of New York stalked me. On my way to work, I watched as New Yorkers covered their ears when the subway screeched to a stop. As I focused on other things at my desk, a plane thundered overhead. And then at the playground, I watched as helicopters (en route to the Hamptons) drowned out the sound of kids playing, and made the slide shake.
So I gave myself a week to indulge my curiosity. What’s happening with sound in New York? Do New Yorkers care about it? Is it harming them? How is it regulated? And is there a better way to regulate it? A week turned into a year, and here I am, with some answers.
I learned three big things. First, noise is not just annoying, but can be physically harmful, leading to increased rates of hearing loss, dementia, heart attack and stroke. Second, noise is disproportionately distributed. Almost every neighborhood has its particular noise issues, but on the whole, low-income neighborhoods suffer the most due to, among other things, being proximate to highways, above-ground trains and airports. And finally, there is tremendous room for improvement in how the City handles noise. For a century, the City’s noise strategy has been to punish individuals for making too much noise. This has meant banning jazz musicians back in the mid-1900s, confiscating stereos in Central Park in the 1980s, raiding gay bars in the 1990s, and, more recently, turning noise enforcement into a feature of broken windows policing. This focus on individuals has come to the exclusion of addressing other sources of noise, such as subways, helicopters, sirens and highways — which studies show are even more prevalent and harmful.
Moving forward, the City should break from this long tradition of myopically targeting individuals and should instead develop a broader approach that looks at all sources of noise and how they can be managed for the benefit of New Yorkers.
New York’s noise problem
But first, it is worth asking whether there is in fact a problem worth solving. There is disagreement about this. Some New Yorkers find it annoying when other New Yorkers complain about noise. It comes with the territory, they say. If you don’t like noise, move to the suburbs.
The premise of this sentiment is that noise is an inevitable feature of living in a big, dense city. Of course, some noise is. But it is also true that many large and dense cities are quieter. Tokyo, Paris and Toronto are a few examples. And even though New York is only the 22nd largest and the 100th densest city in the world, it has been repeatedly cited as one of the loudest. In other words, the level of noise in New York is not an unavoidable consequence of its size and density. New Yorkers are entitled to ask for a quieter city and achieving one is possible.
Other New Yorkers recognize how noisy New York is but suggest that they “get used to it.” If that’s the case, then maybe noise is not a problem to be solved, but one that we need to adjust to. But while it is true that we can psychologically adjust to noise, and maybe as a result feel less annoyed, the underlying physiological harm endures unabated. Studies show that whether you are bothered or not, loud noises harm your hearing and your heart.
According to the World Health Organization, harm is triggered not just by hearing momentary loud noises, but also by experiencing high average noise levels over the course of your day. For example, while noises above 70 decibels are associated with hearing loss, average noises in the 40-50 decibel range are associated with heart conditions and decreased lifespan. For reference, a quiet room is roughly 30 decibels, a busy street is around 70, arriving NYC subways have been measured around 75-95 decibels, and sirens are typically over 110. When sounds over 70 decibels enter our ears, they permanently destroy the tiny cells that enable our hearing called cilia, of which we only have a finite amount (about 16,000). And studies show that once we lose more than half of those cells, we start to notice irreversible hearing loss.
Exposure to noise also triggers a stress response in the amygdala, which scientists have linked to a series of other harms, including heart disease and decreased lifespan. A recent study showed that each five-decibel increase in the average 24-hour noise level of an individual caused a 34% increase in strokes, heart attacks and other significant heart problems. Another recent study found that, controlling for other relevant factors, individuals who experienced high levels of transportation noise were more likely to experience major cardiac events within five years.
Then there is the issue of sleep, and New Yorkers lose a lot of it due to noise. A recent study found that 2 million New Yorkers are being woken up at least three times a week from noise. And sleep disturbance is serious, causing a range of harms from emotional distress to increased rates of cancer.
Any way you slice it, New York City has a noise problem. It is not an inevitable one, and it is not one that goes away by getting used to it. It is one that must be addressed head-on.
Failed efforts to address noise
To its credit, New York has historically taken noise seriously. The problem is not about the attention the problem has gotten but the ineffectiveness of the government response. In July of 1905, the New York Times ran a feature in their Sunday edition titled: “New York the Noisiest City on Earth.” At that time, New York had only one noise ordinance, which prevented carting improperly packed steel pipes on cobblestone streets. Since then, the city has added one prohibition after another. In 1909, for example, the city prohibited street vendors from making “any improper noise tending to disturb the peace.” Then, in 1930, the city decided to ban loudspeakers.
Not long after Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia came to power in 1934, he launched a “War on Noise.” This war was prosecuted against street preachers in Harlem, cab drivers across the city and jukebox operators in Brooklyn. LaGuardia particularly disdained singing on the street. “Impromptu quartettes on street corners,” LaGuardia warned, “will find hostile audiences in patrolment on their beat.” “Imported customs such as serenading under windows,” he added with a nod to his own Italian immigrant community, “will be taboo.”
These early efforts to manage noise — all of which targeted residents and workers rather than government or corporate sources of noise — presaged the next century of punitive noise policy. Mayor Ed Koch, for example, targeted partygoers, jazz musicians and people listening to the radio in Central Park. Mayor David Dinkins launched “Operation Soundtrap,” which penalized people for playing music loudly from their cars.
Mayor Giuliani took office in 1994 and came to view the issue of noise in the context of his broader agenda to address “quality of life” issues. Noise, it was reported in 1997, was the “quality of life campaign’s scourge de jour.” Giuliani doubled and tripled fines for noise violations, and established new, muscular enforcement regimes.
Then came Mayor Bloomberg, in 2002, who launched “Operation Silent Night.” In the program’s first month and a half, the city increased noise enforcement by 300% and in addition to issuing thousands of fines, also arrested 500 people. The Bloomberg administration also oversaw an overhaul of the noise code, which, among other changes, added more specific decibel limits in place of the traditional “unreasonable noise” standard. Mayors de Blasio and Adams, for their part, kept things relatively stable. While they did make changes, such as improved data tracking and more investment in noise cameras, they did not alter the underlying structure and focus of New York’s long-running anti-noise efforts.
While there have been commendable exceptions over the years, such as Gale Brewer’s effort to modify the siren sound, the predominant feature of New York’s noise program is personal and punitive. Over and over, the City hears that residents hate noise, and responds by ticketing or arresting residents. This may have had some impact on noise, but it has limits: For all the sound and fury, New York remains one of the noisiest cities in the world.
A new noise paradigm
The problem with the City’s approach — in addition to the harms it imposes on targeted New Yorkers — is that in its myopic focus on individuals, it misses huge sources of noise. 311 data does indeed show that New Yorkers complain about other New Yorkers quite a bit; a spike in complaints during the Knicks finals is just one example of this.
The 311 data, however, is not the whole picture because while people will certainly call 311 on a neighbor having a party, they are less likely to do so when an ambulance goes by, when a garbage truck does pickup or when a plane flies overhead. But that does not mean that these sources are any less serious. A 2016 survey by the New York State Comptroller, for example, found that the single largest source of noise cited by respondents was sirens. Other major sources were garbage trucks, motor vehicles and air traffic. The “War on Noise” of the past century has almost entirely ignored these sources.
Why has the city taken the punitive road for so long? There are many reasons. One is that to increase a fine is a relatively easy legislative task. So is adding something to a list of prohibitions. These acts are much easier than, say, building technology to make the subways quieter, or working with federal counterparts to manage aircraft noise. It is also politically enticing to blame noise on individuals rather than on the government, which, according to the comptroller’s report, is a much greater source of noise.
Two other dynamics also tip the City’s enforcement towards individuals in its noise management efforts. One is federalism. The City has the power to fine and punish its residents, but it has more limited power over planes, trains, buses, helicopters and sirens — all of which are substantial sources of noise but are partially controlled by state and federal law. The other issue is business. Often, noise is the inconvenient byproduct of profit or at least otherwise productive activity: the tourist helicopter, the building under construction, the planes landing at LaGuardia or even the trash being collected. Sometimes (but not always), seeking to address noise sends you headlong into a wall of corporate interests — or at least into the interests of people trying to do helpful and productive activities.
In order to move away from its punitive past and to create a better-sounding city for the well-being of New Yorkers, the City needs a regulatory regime that is centralized, proactive and hard-wired to navigate federalism and business interests.
As a starting point, I propose that City Council and the mayor create a Department of Sound. Current noise enforcement is conducted within the Department of Environmental Protection, but that Department lacks the resources to think proactively about regulating noise, and in any event, its attention is spread thin among other pressing responsibilities, such as the city’s access to safe drinking water. Further, the fact that hardly anyone knows who is responsible for noise reduces accountability. A Department of Sound would alleviate that problem. New Yorkers could know who to count on and the Department would have the resources to be counted on.
But the Department of Sound should not simply take over the enforcement from the DEP. Instead, the new Department would need to be forward-looking and creative in generating solutions, rather than just being the body that investigates and enforces noise code violations. The Charter currently instructs the DEP “to eliminate noise pollution.” One important improvement would be to instead charge the Department of Sound with “designing and maintaining a soundscape in New York that is optimal for human health and wellbeing.” Already, by reframing the agency's aim, we would be creating a new vision for regulation that incorporates proactive steps towards sound design. Maybe we think not just about removing bad sounds, but also about adding good ones, like birds or bachata.
Another possibility is charging the agency to increase its use of systemwide design to address noise. For example, rather than just imposing fines on people for having loud cars, the agency should also implement a systemic reform measure, such as placing more highway barriers or rethinking street design. This would mark an important shift from the punish-first and often punish-only regime that has existed and failed for so long.
Finally, the Department of Sound’s authorizing statute should do what it can to help the agency manage the challenges of working with the state and federal government, and navigating potential tension with business interests. One tactic on the federalism front would be to instruct the agency to create an Inter-Governmental Sound Co-ordinating Committee, with seats assigned to members across city, state and federal governments. Of course, the city officials cannot coerce the state and federal officials to participate, but the structure at the very least increases the chances of coordination.
As to managing the business interest dynamic, the department could prioritize noise reduction efforts that do not harm businesses. For example, the City should procure quieter garbage trucks before punishing carting companies. It should build low-traffic neighborhoods before ticketing cab drivers for honking. It should redesign the siren before fining small businesses for noise violations. Of course, sometimes business interests will need to be challenged for the health and well-being of New Yorkers, but there is so much work to be done related to noise that there is room to start with efforts that minimize harm to businesses.
Broadly, rather than relying solely on its power to punish, the City — through a newly created department — should also invoke its powers of procurement, street design and intergovernmental coordination to address noise. There may be limits to this proposed approach, but after a century of punishing New Yorkers for noise with little to show for it, it is time to try something new. Otherwise, New York appears poised to continue on this punitive and ineffective path indefinitely, leaving us with ever more fines and ever more noise. New Yorkers deserve a soundscape that doesn’t harm us every day. And more than that, a soundscape that is actually pleasant to live in. Imagine that.
