Noise

After nearly 20 years on an impersonal commercial strip, the Cathedral of Christ the King moved to a quiet residential neighborhood in the northwestern edge of this metropolis. Church leaders were eager to be part of a community. Then, on Palm Sunday 2008, they started ringing the church bells every half hour during the day. The complaints soon began, so church leaders cut back the tolling to once per hour. They put up Styrofoam to muffle the sound.

A City Council committee Tuesday voted in favor of strict noise controls on construction of a 16-story condominium building next door to Capitol Records' studios in Hollywood. Developer David Jordan would be barred from using pile drivers at his Yucca Street project and prohibited from conducting excavation or ground-level construction within 40 feet of Capitol's property line after 10 a.m. on days that recording studios are in use under the vote by the council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee.

RESTAURANT diners -- when they can make themselves heard above the blaring music from a chef's iPod playlist, the clatters and shouts from an open kitchen, and the roar of the cocktail drinkers in an adjacent lounge -- are talking about restaurant noise these days more than the food. And the sound of that is finally reaching management ears.

One of my jobs here at the newspaper is to carefully monitor behavioral changes in the people of Orange County and then attach profound insights to them. To answer your question, of course it's difficult work, but I'm not complaining. I knew what I signed on for and am handsomely compensated for it. With that in mind, let me ask you this: Why are you people honking your horns so much? Let me state it more forcefully: What is up with that? Don't tell me you're not honking more, because you are.

Tired of awakening to the sounds of jackhammers or chain saws? Residential construction cannot legally start before 7 a.m. on weekdays or 8 a.m. on Saturdays and national holidays in the city of Los Angeles. Now L.A. residents can call 311 to lodge off-hours noise complaints, and it won't be hard to find out who the culprits are.

City Councilman Rick Garcia thought cracking down on loud motorcycles would be an easy ride compared with other issues the city grapples with -- homelessness, immigration and the upcoming Democratic National Convention. But regulating motorcycles is anything but tranquil, as Garcia and the rest of Denver found out last week when the city required that all bikes be outfitted with EPA-certified mufflers. Riders whose bikes lack the equipment can be fined up to $500.

TED AX knows he should wear earplugs when he leans into the noisy engine compartment of an MG sports car. He's been working among clanging metal and whirring power tools in garages for the last 15 years and has already developed tinnitus, a ringing in the ears that is one of the most common symptoms of hearing loss caused by excessive noise.

To help residents cope with noise from the busy Garden Grove Freeway, county transportation officials agreed Monday to build a sound wall and install a rubberized road surface. The Orange County Transportation Agency will spent $4 million to muffle noise along a 2-mile stretch of the westbound lanes between Euclid and Magnolia streets in Garden Grove. Although it has received mixed reviews so far, rubberized asphalt is in use on other freeways in the county and on numerous roads.

In response to noise complaints along the Orange Line busway, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority could soon start installing double-pane windows along the San Fernando Valley route, officials said. Of 41 complaints the MTA has received since the 14-mile busway opened in October, reasonable noise levels were exceeded in nine cases, Marc Littman, a spokesman for the agency, said last week.

Like a gunslinger at high noon, Jim Owens stood ready, anxious for the low rumble he knew would come. When it did, followed by the familiar blast of the horn, he whipped out his weapon of choice: a digital sound monitor. Notch another locomotive. "That one read 105 decibels," he exclaimed, standing about 10 feet from the tracks.