By Joel Kom
A battle over the need for a sound barrier is heating up between residents living near Ottawa’s noisiest section of highway and the province’s Ministry of Transportation.
The contested piece of Highway 417 runs beside the westbound lanes from Bank Street to Bronson Avenue. There is currently no barrier along that section of the Queensway, and some residents have had enough of all the noise.
“I can’t fall asleep with my windows open because it’s too loud,” says Stacey Douglas, who lives on Arlington Avenue with her fiancé Sébastien Aubertin-Giguère.
“You can’t keep your windows open because it’s the sound of trucks.”
Douglas and Aubertin-Giguère moved into their home last September but started pressing the province for action when they bought the house last April. They are now organizing a petition asking for a barrier after, they say, provincial officials ignored their letters and phone calls.
Mark Buttigieg, whose house on Bay Street is about 80 metres from the 417, says he’s demanded a barrier from the province for the last 11 years.
“It sounds like there’s a highway running through your backyard the whole time,” he says. “It has the consistency of a white noise, but it has the noise level of kids and their boombox. It’s an evil combination.”
According to a study released by the ministry last January, the noise level near that part of the Queensway ranges from 65 to 70 decibels. That is somewhere between the noise level of a normal conversation and that of a vacuum cleaner. It’s also higher than the province’s accepted limit of 60 decibels and was the highest recorded level along the 417 corridor.
But Dave McAvoy, an environmental planner with the ministry who’s been handling citizens’ complaints for years, says it’s unlikely a barrier will be built. Part of the reason, he says, is a barrier wouldn’t meet the requirement of reducing the sound level by five decibels.
“There’s no sense in putting a barrier if it’s not going to work,” he says.
McAvoy adds that a barrier is not required because Catherine Street, running parallel to the contested area, isn’t zoned as residential.
Since there are no homes directly adjacent to the highway, he says there’s no need for the barrier, which at $1,000 per metre would cost around $300,000 to build.
“There’s no bang for your buck,” he says.
Douglas’ backyard, however, backs onto Catherine Street and looks out onto the highway. She says the noise inside the house is at a constant hum, and all it takes is an open patio door for traffic noise to rush in.
Buttigieg scoffed at McAvoy’s reasons for denying a barrier. He insisted that because residential homes are greatly affected by the Queensway noise, it shouldn’t matter how Catherine Street is zoned.
“Basic stuff like this drives me crazy, because people start looking for technical excuses instead of saying ‘What’s the spirit of the law trying to convey?’” he says.
As for McAvoy’s suggestion that a barrier would make no difference, Buttigieg says the difference is easily audible when you stand on the Glebe side of the highway, which has a barrier.
“I guarantee you if you stuck cardboard up it would reduce (the sound) by 10 decibels!” he exclaimed.
For her part, Douglas has set a goal of 100 signatures for the petition and says she’s been getting a good response so far. She plans to send it to the ministry before an anticipated meeting with transportation officials in March.
And while McAvoy repeats that it’s unlikely a barrier will be built despite the petition effort, Douglas remains optimistic because the province could easily work a barrier into its planned renovations to the Queensway.
Both her and Buttigieg are frustrated they have to do all this work for what seems to be an open-and-shut case.
“Why should we have to fight?” asks Douglas. “They should just do it.”