> These days an EV isn’t any more expensive than a new gas car.

I'm not sure that's true, but also......toooons of people can't afford a new gas car either.

Not really what I was looking for but still super cool none the less. Will be checking it out, ty!

These days an EV isn’t any more expensive than a new gas car.

A Chevy Bolt costs about as much a a gas powered Malibu. A Ford Mach E costs the same as an Edge or Explorer. And things will only get more affordable as GM and others launch new vehicles like the pending $30K Equinox EV.

The time to get started is now, IMO. The more obnoxious straight-pipe mods we get off the streets, the quieter they’ll be.

I don’t really understand what you mean by some of these bc they’re not in providence/downtown providence and/or your can’t see any of the buildings. Prospect terrace park is more of what I’m looking for. I’m not sure where the Bank of America tower is in providence place? When I look it up it comes up as the Superman building but I thought it was closed and you can go there?

Absolutely! The natural (as opposed to forced) proliferation of electrified vehicles can't come soon enough! We are improving, but I think we especially need to support cheaper EVs for lower income people. It's a rich-get-richer kind of situation where the wealthy person is saving money on gas after buying an expensive EV, while the less well off person is getting drained at the pump.

I appreciate our commitment to green energy generation as well, and again feel like we can and should be doing even better.

I’m looking for more of downtown city observatory vibe but this is really cool. I’ll def check it out

Mufflers will disappear with the deprecation of internal combustion cars. The more the state does to facilitate easy EV charging and make gas car ownership difficult, the faster that transition will happen.

An end to permits for new gas stations, and a sunsetting of gas station permits as the owners decommission them would help. So would a significant annual increase in the gas and diesel tax over the next decade.

RI is ideal as a pioneering EV state because of our small size and tilt towards green energy under state law. Reduced surface street noise pollution would be a welcome outcome of such an approach.

Thank u!! You can just walk in right?

As someone who lived a block from the Powell Street cable car line in San Francisco and later a couple of blocks from the N-Judah streetcar line, I can assure you that streetcars are plenty noisy and rather frequent. It’s just a different sort of noise than interstate noise.

>What can we do as citizens to start this conversation?

Even though this isn't nearly the same project, I'd start with waiting for most of the people who were alive and aware of the Big Dig to be dead. It'd still require an uphill battle of convincing 80% of the state pay for and endure extra construction on something they won't really see any benefits from, but it might be slightly less impossible of an idea to sell.

Okay I think this conversation has run its course; now it feels like you're just arguing about anything, maybe to distract from your initial claim you've been able to provide zero scientific (let alone, logical) support for, and I'm not really interesting what you're talking about now.

"back to doing work that helps people" LOL like the police have ever helped anyone.

But lets have them pull over more people because clearly more police interaction is the solution to noise pollution .

> the ability to stop one via making a complaint with the license plate number

Has that worked for you?

> Is your solution having more police or is there some magic solution to enforcing a law already on the book?

Not more police, better managed police. Get them out of their paramilitary training camps and back to doing the work that actually helps the people.

Yesss

How about a follow up piece on the toxic owners and chefs? There’s a lot to mine from lmao

https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/ehp.113-a34

William Luxford, medical director of the House Ear Clinic of St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles, points out one piece of good news: “It’s true that continuous noise exposure will lead to the continuation of hearing loss, but as soon as the exposure is stopped, the hearing loss stops. So a change in environment can improve a person’s hearing health.”

Continued exposure. An illegally modified tailpipe isn't a continued exposure.

Piggybacking -

Comedy Open Mic - Askew Tuesdays

Music open mic - Parlour Wednesdays

Music Open mic - Askew Mondays

Live music - both of these venues have live music every weekend at a minimum

Askew I especially recommend based on the OP - it’s a very chill and welcoming spot with a nice atmosphere and they have food as well as a bar. Both open mics are good scenes. I’ve never been to the comedy open mic.

There’s also a Thursday night open mic at The Mediator Stage which is in a Unitarian church - nice people and usually really good music. Good for participants and observers!

Your body can't tell the difference between sounds but the ability to stop one via making a complaint with the license plate number and not having any recourse means the low constant hum is going to be more problematic.

Once an hour would be considered consistent. Again, read up on how long damage takes to occur. Noise happens, its the constant or consistent sound that needs to be dealt with.

Is your solution having more police or is there some magic solution to enforcing a law already on the book?

Hey /u/communitynoiselab I am glad to see you joining in! It would be great to post your work on /r/providence and /r/RhodeIsland as you publish...clearly it's a topic we all care about!

I have a question here that you may be able to help with.

Is there any research out there that compares the health effects of constant, lower-volume sounds like the rush of a highway vs. intermittent louder sounds like sirens, loud cars and trucks, leaf blowers, etc.? My intuition is that the louder intermittent noise would be worse, but my intuition has surely been wrong in the past so it would be great for an actual researcher to set me straight!

Yup! And they've got pretzel rolls and the oyster po boy on the Garden Grille menu now.

> You can look at research showing that low level decibel levels cause health issues, the article I sent you shows how low exactly it can get and still cause problems.

> If the sound is constant it will always be causing problems where as a single loud noise is intermittent. The frequency alone means things like illegal mufflers are less polluting than a highway full of many vehicles.

I don't think that's sound logic (hah, no pun intended). Do you really think your quality of life would be greater if you had a perfectly silent home except I came by and blew an airhorn once an hour, as opposed to a home with a 60dB white noise machine running 24/7?

> A low constant hum can cause problems and has no protections against through enforcement. Meaning it causes more health problems.

Wait what? You think that your body somehow knows which sounds are legal and illegal, and only accepts damage from the legal ones...?

> A muffler ranges from 100-120 decibels, that takes 5+ minutes to cause damage. I doubt the car is revving their engine in front of your house for that long and if so its probably your neighbor.

As I said in the previous comment, physical hearing damage isn't the issue. It's sleep disturbance and stress related maladies we're talking about.

> Why are you trying to solve a problem that already has a solution? Enforcement is a police issue and cops in Providence are notoriously bad at their job.

I'm not sure what your point is. The cops suck, so I should just give up hope of anything related to them ever improving?

> As for fully capping the highway that sounds like a fantasy with how RI invests in infrastructure

Yeah probably, but I can still prefer an ideal solution over a realistic one, can't I?

>you cut a huge chunk of the noise even without the full enclosure

But also lose out on a ton of other non-noise-related benefits.

A lot of factors keep it from ever changing but I think it's just boils down to consumerism. Basically the same human psychology we play here with the 4.99 vs 5 dollars and not including sales tax in prices of stuff. Whatever way you can give a consumer a lower price before check out is ideal. It's not surprising America adopted this.

That steak isn't 18 dollars it comes with a 1.26 sales tax, .18 cent local tax, with a 3.6 tip. You'd feel too bad to get a soda if the steak was 23.04.

>The issue is a "constant low drum" is what causes the health issues. A brief annoyance at someone driving by with a straight pipe doesn't happen all day, every day.

Isn't the most severe impact felt with sleep interruption/deprivation from noise though? I feel like that's something people can adapt to better with time.

Hell, some people need white noise machines cranking out like 50-75 decibels just to be able to sleep because that's better than going from 0 to 75 while already asleep.

Ok, let me explain how you can look at data and make a conclusion - You can look at research showing that low level decibel levels cause health issues, the article I sent you shows how low exactly it can get and still cause problems.

If the sound is constant it will always be causing problems where as a single loud noise is intermittent. The frequency alone means things like illegal mufflers are less polluting than a highway full of many vehicles.

A low constant hum can cause problems and has no protections against through enforcement. Meaning it causes more health problems. A muffler ranges from 100-120 decibels, that takes 5+ minutes to cause damage. I doubt the car is revving their engine in front of your house for that long and if so its probably your neighbor.

Why are you trying to solve a problem that already has a solution? Enforcement is a police issue and cops in Providence are notoriously bad at their job.

As for fully capping the highway that sounds like a fantasy with how RI invests in infrastructure - noise barriers work well and you cut a huge chunk of the noise even without the full enclosure. Something about the way they are shaped keeps the sound from escaping. Significantly cheaper because you don't need them to be as robust too.

You can find Ocean State Pride Volleyball on Facebook. Play is most Sundays at the Y in Pawtucket.