Breaking the Sound Barrier Why environmental noise is still not reduced properly, and what to do about it

Various international cost-benefit studies show that traffic noise can be reduced cost-effectively by noise measures [16]. A quieter environment leads to less annoyance and sleep disturbance, resulting in reduced health damage and production loss [7-9]. This does not only justify the present national noise policy which aims at avoiding noise growth by noise emission ceilings, but also suggests that much more ambitious goals are within reach. In the Netherlands, about 2300 DALYs per million people are concerned with adverse health effects of traffic noise [8]. An overall road noise reduction of 4 to 8 dB can be achieved cost-effectively [5]. The message is obvious: noise reduction pays. However, the results of these studies appear not to generate much interest among policy makers and politicians. In this paper we summarize the methods and results, we will discuss why the message is still ignored and finally we provide ideas to take the noise issue higher on the political agenda.