Summary

The province's noise standard is arbitrary and does not reflect the impact of noise on nearby residents. It is time for the standard to be revised and brought into line with international standards supported by Health Canada.  

However, there is nothing preventing the government from building barriers whether the standard is updated or not.  Protecting residents' health is strictly a matter of ethics and political will, not of engineering standards.

The Standard

The Province of Alberta uses a very simple measurement based on a 24-hour average of the noise to define the level at which noise attenuation (sound barriers) will be employed.  This measure is defined as dBA Leq(24), and the province's current standard is 65 dBA Leq(24).  The province is currently using this standard to deny requests for noise attenuation along the Anthony Henday, as noise studies have shown that the 65 dBA limit has not been exceeded. 

The City of Edmonton's noise bylaw calls for a maximum nighttime noise level of 50 dBA.  The Henday noise clearly exceeds this level.

The World Health Organization published a study that determined a healthy standard is a level of 50 dBA during the day, and 45 dBA at night.  The Alberta noise standard may be in violation of international charters signed by the federal government.

Why the Standard is Useless

There are so many issues with this standard and the way the province neglects its responsibilities to its citizens, it's difficult to know where to start.  First of all, the 65 dBA number is an arbitrary value that the province (and city) chose, even though the World Health Organization advocates much lower levels.  This 65 dBA is meant to represent the point at which noise becomes a significant issue to residents.  As anyone living near the Henday will attest, this number is way too high - the noise becomes a serious issue well before it hits 65 dBA, and it demands immediate attention.

Politicians don't need to spend another dime on noise studies, just to hide behind some arbitrary number - they need to listen to their constituents who are providing them with far more realistic data than any noise study.  If fact, a truly responsive government would take this opportunity to do a study with nearby households in order to revise the standard to reflect the actual impact on residents.  Unfortunately, it appears we do not have officials that are truly responsive to constituent concerns.

The next problem with 65 dBA Leq(24) is that it doesn't differentiate between noise during the day and noise at night.  Obviously it takes less noise during the night to disturb you than during the day, and in general road noise at night is lower than during the day.  There are two problems with combining daytime and nighttime noise levels: the overall noise level is lowered, and the true impact of noise at night is completely hidden.  Many jurisdictions (like the City of Edmonton) differentiate between daytime and nighttime noise measurements to get a better idea of the true impact of noise on nearby residents - there's no reason why Alberta could not do the same.  Unfortunately, the Alberta government (unbelievably) seems to think a 24 hour average is actually better for representing nighttime noise.

Yet another issue related to nighttime noise is that average noise is completely meaningless when trying to asses the impact of the road on nearby residents (the World Health Organization study makes this point as well).  For example, if your neighbours were to set off fireworks outside your bedroom window for 20 seconds every hour from 11PM to 6AM, the average noise level over 24 hours would be nearly 0 dBA Leq(24), but you would be getting woken up every hour and would clearly consider this an unacceptable situation, worthy of a call to the police. This is in effect what is happening to families located near the Henday: they are being subjected to unacceptable noise spikes that they have no control over. 

It is time for the politicians to either revise the noise standard or to simply build noise barriers to address the fact that residents near the Henday are suffering.