Baie-d’Urfé not eligible for provincial funding to reduce Highway 20 noise
According to Transport Quebec, noise levels wafting off Highway 20 in Baie-d’Urfé are not affecting enough residents to warrant a cost-sharing arrangement with the town to make things quieter.
Transport Quebec conducted 15 tests of varying lengths between Aug. 23 and Sept. 21, 2016. Only four homes located in proximity of Highway 20 fit the criteria for excessive noise — all four located to the west of Morgan St.
For a municipality to be eligible for a cost-sharing arrangement with Transport Quebec, at least 10 homes — or 30 homes stretched over one kilometre — must be experiencing highway noise of 65 decibels or more.
“We weren’t surprised by the results,” Mayor Maria Tutino said.
Tutino said the town had hired the company Vinacoustik to verify noise levels and only one house was found to be experiencing excessive noise.
Tutino said the solution to the problem is now 100 per cent in the town’s hands.
“We’ve been studying this issue through two elections and a third election is on the way,” she said. “If we don’t make a decision, at least about the berm problem, it will become the next administration’s problem.”
The hardest-hit homes are near a berm created by the town when developers built homes in the DavidKennedy and Gray streets zone in the late 1980s.
“The berm has become compacted over the years and the highway has been elevated,” Tutino said. “Homeowners can now see the cars on the highway.”
Beginning in 2014, the town placed $300,000 a year in a soundbarrier fund. With $900,000 at the ready, Tutino presented two options at a public consultation last week.
Option 1 is a short-term solution for the berm-adjacent homes. The base of the berm would be expanded, which would allow for the berm’s height to be increased. Then a chain-link fence would be installed and foliage planted.
The berm is on land owned by Transport Quebec, but the ministry has given the town permission to make the improvements. The sound-barrier fund would cover the estimated $800,000 cost of the berm repair.
This option would hide the highway from homes nearby, but would not muffle the sound.
Option 2 is longer-term solution that would not only see the berm base expanded and the berm heightened but also have a 2.7 metre wall built on top of the berm. Noise would be reduced.
The estimated price tag is $2 million — $900,000 would come from the sound-barrier fund and $1.1 million from the town’s surplus.
Tutino said the 50 or so people who attended the consultation last week on the night of the worst snowstorm of the winter, had a lot to say and council took note.
She said the town has the time to make a decision about what to do to improve the berm before the Nov. 5 election and that because money was put away, citizens would not be taxed.
Tutino described the town’s approach to improving infrastructure as the “pay as you go” approach."