Description
During the nights of 4/21-22 and 4/23-24, construction crews have been present at this location operating equipment in violation of the noise ordinance. City health department confirms they have not obtained a variance. The law is the law and needs to be obeyed. Local residents have been unable to sleep as a result of the noise.
7 Comments
CJ (Registered User)
Last night was the third or fourth night this spring that crews have excavated and patched this block of Chapel. This comes on top of five or six nights last fall when there were crews working all night. Why does this block require so much work?
I acknowledge that by living downtown I'll be subject to a noisier environment than if I lived in suburbia, but this truly unacceptable. Given the density of residential units in this area, a lot of people are being kept up most of the night by this activity. I realize there may be traffic concerns deterring this work from being performed during the day (although I bristle at the thought of not inconveniencing commuters at the expense of keeping city residents up all night), but some consideration needs to be given to the proximity of road work to where people live.
me <small class="fwn">(Guest)</small>
Chapel St <small class="fwn">(Guest)</small>
Chapel Watcher (Registered User)
CJ (Registered User)
Thanks for the update Chapel Watcher.
This wouldn't be such an issue and I wouldn't be upset if this work was actually done from 10-2. That would make it like a particularly noisy Friday or Saturday night downtown. However, this work did not stop at 2. On Monday night they finished at 6 or 7 in the morning. On Wednesday, I finally gave up trying to sleep and went to work at 5 and they were still at it.
If it's City Hall directing this, I guess it's time to ping our alder.
Chapel St <small class="fwn">(Guest)</small>
I've spoken with several more people in various city departments. It appears that the traffic engineer expressly required the work to take place at night (I've seen the permit and it does indeed impose time of day restrictions on the work). It seems pretty clear this was done without any reference to the city noise ordinance (to the best of my knowledge, there's nothing that gives a city traffic engineer the power to ignore that ordinance; it certainly isn't in the ordinance itself). Most likely the traffic engineer didn't want to have to do the work necessary to reroute traffic (or even just to clear out the parking areas and squeeze traffic around the side of the work area).
Definitely time to let the alders know about it. Neither laziness nor commuter convenience allows one to break the law.
One other note. One of the people in the permit office told me they are scheduled to be back again this Monday night doing yet more work. So there's no time like the present.
クローズド Manager of Operations, Process Improvement - Transportation, Traffic, & Parking (Verified Official)