Leaf Blowers By Day, Sirens By Night
I’ve lived in Greenville for 4 years.
I’ve lived in 6 different places in this city.
Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of my relatively unsettled residency in Greenville is that I’ve been chased from my porch due to intolerable leaf blowers (and sirens!) countless times.
Nearly every night over those 4 years, I have been awoken multiple times during the night by sirens.
It’s not because Greenville has more leaves, crimes, heart attacks, or fires than any other city.
I’ve lived in 11 cities – some much bigger than Greenville – and I’m now certain Greenville is the noisiest city in America.
One of the biggest sources of noise pollution in Greenville is the out-of-control, shamefully overused emergency vehicle siren on fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances.
It is not rocket science to come up with technology and policy that would reduce that noise problem significantly.
For starters, Greenville needs to join the hundreds of US cities that have prohibited gas leaf blowers.
On countless occasions, I have had the extreme displeasure of having my early morning coffee at a Main Street café disrupted by shrieking leaf blowers being used on sidewalks before 8 and sometimes before 7 am. Sidewalks that butt up to hundreds of apartments, hotel rooms, and condos. In other words, places where hundreds are having their sleep interrupted by city workers.
And this by a City that puts up A-frame signs up and down Main Street warning people that noise pollution will result in steep fines.
While I firmly believe the City should maintain clean sidewalks in the town center, even a child knows how such cleaning can happen with creating inexcusable early morning noise pollution. I asked a city maintenance manager why they blow sidewalks at an insanely early hour and was told that in the past when they cleaned sidewalks at mid-day, citizens complained that they had debris blown on them while walking on the sidewalk.
Apparently, this manager lacks the wisdom of a three-year old on this (or must abide by commands of his superiors), as even a child understand a simple solution.
Rope off sections of sidewalks to keep sidewalk users away from sidewalks during cleanings.
This is not rocket science.
The manager claimed such a tactic was not possible, as it would inconvenience walkers and on-street parking. It would also slow down the maintenance crews, he observed.
I responded by pointing out that life is a series of tradeoffs, and in my view the tradeoff of avoiding sleep disruption and café disruption at early hours far outweighs the added maintenance or motorist inconvenience.
I suspect that this manager (or his superiors) would very quickly and clearly attain this wisdom if they lived in a main street dwelling and were awoken on a regular basis by blowers wailing at 7 am.
They would quickly start roping off sidewalk sections.
They would suddenly acquire the wisdom of a three-year old.
As for overused sirens, we can reduce siren pollution without sacrificing safety. Indeed, a powerful case can be made that such a reduction can substantially improve safety.
In Europe, for example, sirens are far less annoying because their sirens use such things as lower decibel, less-high-pitched, less continuous sounds.
And in some US cities, policy has significantly reduced the problem.
For example, in one city I know of, fire trucks at stations within residential neighborhoods cannot turn on their sirens in the middle of the night until they have left the neighborhood.
Another policy: sirens cannot be used for non-emergencies (a shocking number of siren runs are for non-emergencies).
Or how about equipping emergency vehicles with a device that triggers green signal lights?
Another much-needed reform could not only reduce excessive siren use but reduce the number of fatal vehicle crashes. We do that by requiring emergency vehicles to be far smaller in size so that they are able to bypass more cars without wailing sirens as often. As it is, emergency vehicles tend to be grossly and irresponsibly oversized.
Oversized emergency vehicles obligate Greenville to oversize roadway dimensions, which at least one study has shown substantially increases deaths due to vehicle crashes.
Note too that Greenville’s oversized roads (and there are countless examples) can be converted from four (or more) lanes to three so that there is a center turn lane. Smaller roads are safer roads.
A commonly neglected policy that can be used to reduce excessive siren use is to drive emergency vehicles at a slower speed. Let’s decide a fast ambulance is as adequate as a very fast ambulance.
And such vehicles should use only their lights rather than lights and sirens when cars are not in the vicinity (as is more likely in the middle of the night).
I am certain that if we did research, we’d find that speeding by wailing emergency vehicles kills far more people due to crashes caused by speeding emergency vehicles than the lives saved due to shorter response times.
How much is public health harmed – and lives shortened -- by regularly interrupted, shortened sleep?
How much tax and sales revenue is lost because countless citizens find city living so noisy that they move out of the city?
Consider this: I spoke with an attorney in Greenville about noise, and he informed me that his office in Manhattan is far less noisy than what he experiences in Greenville.
It is far past time to make emergency services a contributor to our community well-being, rather than a menace.
Oh, and maybe instead of bothering our neighbors by blowing leaves four times a week, we could opt for less frequent brooms and rakes instead. And maybe learn the “rocket science” of roping off sections of sidewalk.
Less noise, more consideration for neighbors, and more exercise.