The noise-harassed citizen is not even permitted the essential of quiet living space. The misconception that a decent acoustic environment is a luxury rather than a necessity and a human right, plus greed and the pressure of competition, encourage the builder to ignore noise insulation. In the United States there is no national code for dwelling sound control. Though such codes could be found in Europe as early as 1938, not until New York City adopted one in 1968 did a single American municipality have a building code with noise control provisions.
Since the New York code will probably be "sold" to other municipalities, it is important to understand its weaknesses.
The decibel key to a building code is a combination of three standards. The Sound Transmission Class (STC) measures the ability of the wall to keep out sound. The Impact Noise Rating (INR) describes the ability of the floor/ceiling construction to keep out sound. The Noise Criteria (NC) specify permissible sound levels in unoccupied rooms, setting limits on noises from mechanical equipment outside of the rooms, such as air conditioning, ventilating, and heating systems.
According to noise control specialist Martin Hirschorn, New York City's proposed rating for walls is below the lowest standard reported in Europe.*
Another acoustical consultant, who specified what New York City should have for floor/ceiling ratings, told the American Carpet Institute: "Impact Noise Ratings of -2 to +4 have been specified as minimum requirements for multifamily dwellings. These should not be considered as 'design criteria.' It has been our experience that ratings on the order of +10 to +15 must be obtained for a reasonable degree of tenant satisfaction." By "reasonable," he said he meant 75 to 90 per cent. New York's INR of "0" can mean that perhaps 75 per cent of the tenants will not be satisfied.
The noise level from continuously running mechanical equipment permitted by the code is NC 40. Hirschorn told the City Council that the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) listed NC 40 as a recommended average criterion for "halls, corridors, lobbies, laboratories, general open offices, general banking areas, restaurants, nightclubs, clothing stores, bowling alleys, gymnasiums." Said he: "A man coming home from work is surely entitled to something a little quieter. The basis of this code is the assumption that an NC 40 is acceptable to the majority of people living in city apartments; this is an incorrect assumption and, in effect, would legislate noisier apartments than we have now in this city...When no standard existed he (the tenant) could complain about excessive noise...Now the builders... would presumably have no need to modify their installation if they met the provisions of the proposed law, even though their acoustical performance might be highly disturbing to a large number of people."
The late Senator Robert F. Kennedy was concerned about the flaws in this proposed code because he realized it could become the model for city governments throughout the nation. He wrote the City Council: "...Passage of the code, as presently written, does not go nearly far enough towards preserving some form of peace and quiet in our cities..."
"...Provisions ought to exist for improving windows and insulation to provide for the same sound attenuation from the outside as exists between apartments. Criteria ought to be set for regulating noise within schools and hospitals as well..."
This code permits noise intrusion from hallways, lobbies, and similar areas. There is no provision for the noise rating of appliances used within an apartment, the built-in appliances such as dishwashers, no provision for quiet toilets.
After waiting almost three decades, why didn't one of the world's noisiest cities adopt a more stringent code? To spare the real estate industry? Perhaps, but the professed reason for the poor decibel standards involves a bit of acoustic magic, the conversion of a most disturbing noise—the noise of passing motor vehicle traffic—into beneficial noise.
Here's how the code's acoustical consultant explained the low standards:
"These minimum standards have been selected with the knowledge that the apartment buildings will be located in areas of density and traffic conditions...where normal ambient noise levels generated by concentrated vehicle activity and high density occupancy will provide beneficial masking of intruding speech signals and other noises."
It is difficult to say who is responsible for this acoustic doublethink—private industry or government. But the FHA supports this "beneficial masking" concept for dwelling design:
"We must distinguish between two types of noise. The first is the ambient noise environment, the quiet, neutral, background noise from flowing traffic or air-conditioning equipment to which we rapidly become accustomed and soon do not notice at all [sic]. This background noise is an exceedingly important element in all noise control situations for it helps to mask the sporadic intruding sounds. For example, an intruding noise which would be intolerable in a quiet country village might go completely unnoticed in an apartment or a busy street, where the continuous hum of traffic masks out the noises from next door without itself seeming unpleasant."
The harsh fact about any anti-noise legislation is that in order not to be attacked as "unreasonable" or "unrealistic," the decibel limits must be acceptable to commerce and industry.
Unless the law has provision for improvement with time, all decibel legislation does is freeze an intolerable noise level in perpetuity. Three years after enactment of the New York State motor vehicle decibel limit in 1965, the problem was as acute as ever. After a meeting of the state's Department of Transportation and its Thruway Authority with the Thruway Noise Abatement Committee, a publicity release was issued from the Governor's Executive Chamber. The only new abatement measure mentioned was a review of the plan to plant trees and shrubbery along the right-of-way in an attempt to muffle the traffic noise. Hundreds of feet of dense plantings would be necessary to provide any degree of significant reduction. The highway bisects many residential areas, leaving little or no space for such plantings. Nothing was said about requiring Detroit to lower its emission level.