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Comment by david-gpu | Hacker News Reader

I hear that noise pollution in Manhattan has gotten better since congestion pricing started.

Cities aren't loud; cars are loud.

Cars aren't nearly as loud as sirens and garbage trucks. Whenever I stay in a dense city those tend to keep me up at night.

> Cars aren't nearly as loud as sirens and garbage trucks

Guess what forces emergency vehicles to fire their sirens, or garbage trucks to linger.

bwahaha this is so ridiculous.

You’re really claiming that a congested street isn’t meaningfully more noisy than an uncongested one, including in terms of frequency and duration of horns and sirens?

More noisy? Of course. But even in nice places like Chelsea - at 2am when there are no cars or congestion at all - the cops/ambulances and garbage trucks have no problem being incredibly noisy.

Without cars, emergency vehicles could have their sirens at 10% of the volume. Garbage trucks and busses are slowly being replaced by electric versions which are much quieter.

Electric garbage trucks aren't much quieter. I've heard them. Most of the noise comes from the machinery and the reverse beeping, not the engines.

> Cities aren't loud; cars are loud.

EVs have entered the chat

Still, I'd always prefer less cars and more transit.

In my experience, EVs are nearly as loud as IC, as the majority of the noise at typical stroad speeds comes from the tires, not the engine.

> the majority of the noise at typical stroad speeds comes from the tires, not the engine

It comes from honking.

Isn't that mostly applicable to highway speeds? Does tire noise have much of an effect at city speeds?

Yes. I live in a small city. Along a moderately busy avenue with speeds around 25 mph, it’s hard to carry a conversation. 30 feet down a side street, totally different story.

Yes, it is very noticeable at city speeds. Source: my hears every day I go out.

The engine noises in cities are generally not a huge problem outside of trucks (or POS cars modified to make noise).

The issue that people apparently think that the horn makes the red light turn green faster or will magic away the car blocking the box.

I first heard the phrase used by parent in a video [1] by youtube channel Not Just Bikes, which found EVs to be similar to ICE cars at typical speeds.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8

I find EVs noticeably quieter, but the "typical speeds" here in Copenhagen are properly lower than where you live.

At 30km/h or so, the main noise is the engine, so EVs are quieter (as the video says).

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