Earplugs and white-noise machines: Westhill-area residents cope with vehicle noise

Just beyond Julie Derby’s backyard fence, traffic rumbles by on Ninth Avenue North at 70 kilometres per hour, sometimes faster.

There’s a berm on the other side of the road that residents say bounces soundwaves back toward their homes.

It’s loud enough that the Westhill Park-area resident says she doesn’t use her deck anymore, opting for the front yard until she can redesign it in a way that gives her some peace and quiet.

“People will honk at us being back here and whatnot so we don’t use it. We close the windows,” Derby says, often raising her voice to be heard.

“The quality of life has definitely gone down. You wear earplugs (or) you have white noise machines. You try a stereo speaker facing the traffic so that it kind of drowns it out a little bit.”

Derby is among a handful of residents in the northwest Regina neighbourhood frustrated with a range of nuisances, noise among them, that come with living adjacent to a road they say is ill-suited to handle the busy traffic.

One of her neighbours, Dave Sinclair, says he spent a “significant amount” of money to redevelop his backyard only to need headphones to muffle the distraction from his reading. He says his wife has issues with her hearing and doesn’t go back there at all.

He describes the noise as continuous, getting worse in the spring when drivers dust off their summer cars.

“Speed is one thing, noise is another but there’s just zero enforcement … People have free will to drive as fast as they’d like to and drive whatever type of vehicle they’d like to,” Sinclair says.

“It’s not just car traffic. It’s motorcycles. There’s definitely cars and vehicles with augmented exhaust systems.”

Last month, Regina city council voted to change its noise bylaw so drivers who make excessive vehicle noise can face a $250 fine. However, many acknowledge the penalty alone will not put an end to the problem.

Council heard from police who said they often get videos of drivers stunt driving, but they’re usually taken from afar and there’s no way to identify the vehicle.

Police said the challenge with enforcement is it requires officers to see the offending drivers to pull them over and parking cops at every street corner isn’t a viable option. Also, a complainant needs to write a detailed statement and testify in court about what they heard or saw.

Police also said escalating fines are weaker deterrents against bad behaviour like stunt driving or racing compared to demerit points and the possibility of impoundment.

“Ultimately, it comes down to being able to catch them,” Mayor Sandra Masters told reporters last month. “Clearly, there’s a bit of a resource issue relative to having (police) cars in the area. We know from a proactive policing perspective that presence actually is one of the main deterrents in terms of some of these events.”

Council also decided to write to the minister responsible for Saskatchewan Government Insurance calling for “stricter measures regarding vehicle standards and inspection policies.” The city will also work with the province on an education campaign on stunting, racing and vehicle noise. City administration will also report back next year on whether an escalating fine is needed.

Residents in the Westhill neighbourhood are concerned with more than just the noise, saying the road is used as a drag strip. As a sports car passes by, Derby is confident where more of them can be found.

“You can be sitting here, say nine o’clock on a Friday or Saturday night and you can see 40 really souped-up cars. Probably the best car show in Regina goes by here and we know they’re making their way out to the Global Transportation Hub,” she says.

They also say the section of Ninth Avenue North that runs by their neighbourhood is not meant to handle the amount of traffic they see daily, being single lane in each direction with no shoulders.

They welcomed a ban on truck traffic but continue to see semis driving by — or driving by until the driver realizes they’re not supposed to be on that road.

“We’ve actually seen semis make a U-turn on this road and I didn’t even think it would be possible,” says Linda McFie. “That’s another huge safety issue. They’re afraid they’re going to get the ticket and they do the turn in the middle of this road.

“We may have signage but it needs to be improved and the information needs to be shared with the truckers.”

Sinclair believes stronger enforcement is a must and also suggests lowering the speed limit.

“If we can’t deal with those, at least come up with some noise attenuation measures. So whether it’s a 20-foot fence or whether it’s a berm on the side of the road, we need to do something,” he says.