According to the article, "Traffic is the No. 1 contributor to the ambient noise level in San Francisco." The other major forms of noise pollution listed in the article are sirens (from fire trucks), trains and exhaust fans. San Francisco senior environmental health specialist for the Department of Health, Tom Rivard, hopes to use this study on noise pollution from traffic as another input in future building codes, land-use ordinances and transportation policy. The article also notes that cars aren't the only major sources of noise pollution. What else is there? A ventilation and A/C unit in a library is causing problems for local residents.
A solution raised by Mr. Rivard is to have ordinances issued that would curtail operating hours for a bar or restaurant, in addition to other measures to limit noise. Yes, I can see it now: a noise curfew for certain hours of the day, ala quiet hours in dorms, where pesky RA's wander the dorm searching for people making too much noise. Perhaps these noise police can be the same people checking our trash and tire pressure on our cars. In other words, San Francisco is about to embark on another ambitious program to weed out those of us who live in the city and own a car under the guise of noise pollution. Environmentalism is indeed the new religion and mantra for all sorts of invasive government regulation and oversight.
Hey, you know what else would limit noise? New windows, and, as a bonus, they help make one's house or apartment more energy efficient, and create jobs. Let's, instead, help people pay for installation of new windows that will reduce noise inside a residence, and also help lower energy bills, instead of limiting the ability of business to operate or forcing people out of their car. Or getting the screaming-in-the-middle-of-the-night homeless people into shelters, instead of saying it's a lifestyle choice. I swear, each time I read one of these articles about pushing government into people's lives and their choices, I'm one step closer to moving to the suburbs, where I have a yard in the front, thereby keeping a distance from the road, a tree lined street, safe(r) neighborhoods and better schools.
In another article from today, this one on legislation limiting what types of businesses can open in North Beach, the President of the North Beach Merchants Association noted that "I'm a 25-year resident and I'm tired of having to get in my car and drive to Polk Street to buy a screwdriver."
So, at the same time San Francisco is trying to come up with creative ways to limit people driving, they have fashioned rules (including a potential carbon tax) that make it difficult for new businesses to take root in this city, thus, requiring residents of this city to drive somewhere else and buy what they need. In March of this year, Home Depot was forced to cancel plans to open a store in San Francisco due to zoning rules that were going to be passed by the Board of Supervisors, denying the opportunity to have a new source of revenue and jobs for an area of town that desperately needs new jobs. As Caille Millner noted in this February 2008 editorial:
Never mind that most city residents hop in their cars and offer their sales tax to Daly City when it's time to hit Home Depot: A small, vocal element of "neighborhood activists" insists that chain stores "ruin neighborhood character" and are "homogenizing" because the goods they offer are - gasp! - widely available.
I'd like to point out, too, that people who hold these views usually emphasize that it's only certain chain stores that they don't like: the déclassé ones like McDonald's, the ones that reek of lower-income customers and commonness. Trader Joe's is always just fine with these folks, it's Subway that's the problem.
Of course I do that, I have a car and Daly City offers the businesses that I shop at most, notably, Target and Home Depot. Also, I can still get plastic bags in Daly City, so that's another plus.
Course, the opposition to the building of a new Whole Foods in the Haight on the site of a former grocery store, further shows this dichotomy, albeit for slightly different, and far more stranger, reasons. But that's another topic, for another day.
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