1,300 people in city exposed to excessive noise at home – from traffic

By Dara Bradley

Sssssh – keep the noise down.

The local authority has developed a ‘noise action plan’ which will help it reduce the racket from traffic-generated environmental noise that interferes with city residents’ lives.

The public has been invited to study the Council’s map of ‘noisy locations’ that are identified and to make submissions on the plan.

The draft plan has identified that about 1,300 residents – or less than two per cent of the population of Galway City – are living in homes that are exposed to levels of noise that exceed recommended levels.

The noise levels the Council has mapped throughout the city is related to traffic along roads and not due to neighbours or nuisance noise, the Council has stressed.

A total of 39 areas and roadways in Galway that come under the jurisdiction of Galway City Council assessed for the plan, were found to possibly be in need of noise mitigation measures.

The top four noisiest roads in the city were: R336 Bohermore; the N17 Tuam Road north of the N6 Junction; N6 Bothar na dTreabh, Ballybane Junction to Briarhill; and the N6 Monivea Road east of Ballybane Junction, backing onto N6.

These roads will be in need of mitigation measures, although the type of measure that would be required will differ for each road.

The next noisiest roads were: Dublin Road; Ballybane Road; Monivea Road at Monivea Park; Roscam; N84 at Ballinfoile/Ballindooley; Moneenageisha Road; College Road; N59 Bushypark; Newcastle Road Lower; N59 at Newcastle; University Road; Bishop O’Donnell Road at the Taylor’s Hill junction; R864 in Salthill; and at Nile Lodge.

A spokesperson said that the city’s noisiest road, through Bohermore, is a residential area and so mitigation measures like erecting trees or walls would not work.

Read more in today’s Galway City Tribune