Residents demand action over vehicle noise in Edmonton neighbourhoods

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Barbara McKinley used to love Edmonton’s spring and summer  – the festivals, the warm evenings, the chance to walk through her neighbourhood or host a backyard barbecue with friends.

But now, after 45 years in her home, she said she could no longer enjoy any of it.

Deafening noise from souped-up cars and motorcycles racing down Saskatchewan Drive and Walterdale Hill has taken over her nights, leaving her unable to sleep, open her windows, or spend time outdoors with friends.

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Now, alongside fellow longtime Edmonton resident Lida Somchynsky, McKinley is calling for urgent action to curb what they describe as “relentless and deliberate vehicle noise” in their neighbourhoods — disruptions that have made nights unbearable and sleep nearly impossible.

McKinley said the noise is particularly severe in the evenings and on weekends, often continuing until well after midnight.

“I’m kept awake at night until 3 a.m. or I’m woken up frequently during the night by the noise,” she said. “This is having a huge impact on all of our health and our quality of life. For example, I cannot sit outside in my yard on weekends or evenings. I can’t barbecue and have friends over. I can’t sit on my patio. And I can’t open my windows. Even when my windows are closed at night, the noise is so bad that it still keeps me awake.”

The noise is not a by-product of urban living, but the result of deliberate behaviour by a small number of drivers, she noted.

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“This noise is intentional. It’s not just the effect of living in a busy city. There’s also traffic. I live in this particular neighbourhood. This is noise that’s deliberately caused by owners modifying their exhaust systems in their vehicles to make them very loud,” she said.

McKinley said the issue goes beyond loud vehicles. Drivers are engaging in disruptive behaviour such as “grabbing engines while in neutral, using bridges and overpasses as echo-chambers, and stunting, just to inflict excessive noise on the rest of us.”

Somchynsky, who has lived in the same area for nearly four years, echoes the concerns.

“For the last four to five years, myself and others have had to put up with the loud motorcycle rumbling, especially on weekends. It starts in spring, continues full force in summer, and continues on into the early autumn nights, usually it starts around 11 p.m. and it goes till 2 a.m. in the morning,” she said.

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The noise has become “unbearable” for her and many of her neighbours, she said.

“It prevents me and many of my elderly neighbours from going to sleep, and we are tossing and turning. At the age of 74, I also have a chronic respiratory condition, and it is essential that I get sleep.”

“It’s a very near and dear topic to my heart,” said Ward papastew Coun. Michael Janz. “I live on Whyte Avenue, and my family and I are constantly disturbed by the street racing and the dangerous driving and the noisy motorbikes and modified vehicles. And it’s really gotten worse since COVID-19.”

Janz said noise enforcement should be treated not just as a quality-of-life issue but a public safety crisis.

“There were seven motorcyclists killed last year in Edmonton over the summer, and I believe already there’s been three in Edmonton this year,” he said. “There’s also a serious public safety concern here, that it’s well documented that noisy vehicles go hand in hand with dangerous driving, speeding and street racing … we’ve seen fatalities, and that’s something none of us want to see, both for those individual riders or any innocent bystanders they may take out with them.”

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The complaints are not new, said Edmonton Police Service chief Warren Driechel.

“There’s been a long-standing issue in the city, and a long-standing complaint,” he said. “We’ve heard about noisy vehicles, like I was a beat cop on Whyte Avenue in 2006 and that was a problem back then.”

Driechel pointed to several challenges in enforcement, including legal and technological limitations.

“It’s very difficult at times because, you know, what is the technology available to do it? How do the courts respond? What is our capacity to kind of do enforcement on that? So there’s a lot of nuances there,” he said.

Driechel said the police run a yearly project every once in a while to target loud vehicles.

“We understand those concerns and the plights from the community. The challenge is always – it’s easy for us to do enforcement, but what happens after the fact is out of our control.”

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McKinley believes enforcement tools already exist but need political will to be implemented, citing the need for a “united approach where the government departments, city departments, are also advocating,”

Janz said Edmonton should adopt solutions being used in other cities.

“We need the provincial government to allow noise enforcement like noise radar,” he said. “If the province were to enable noise photo radar like they have in London or New York, there’s new technology that is so precise it can determine the source of a bullet, and they’re using it successfully in New York City right now.”

New York City levies an $800 US fine on first-time offenders for excessive noise from vehicles.

He said Edmonton police and bylaw officers must also step up enforcement using existing powers under the Traffic Safety Act.

“They’re pulling over modified vehicles, and they’re ticketing them to the fullest extent of the law or even impounding them,” he said. “One noisy vehicle can wake up thousands of residents, and in some cases, they’re going all night long. And that’s just completely unsustainable.”

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Janz also emphasized the broader impact on businesses, saying noise on Whyte Avenue has turned people away from local patios and storefronts.

“There’s a whole bunch of motorcyclists who like to hang out on Whyte Avenue. I thought the point of these motorbikes was to go and enjoy the open highway. Yet, Whyte Avenue is not an open highway … They treat our city like it’s their personal drag strip. And that is unacceptable, and it must stop.”

In 2020, Janz launched a petition at michaeljanz.ca/noise, which led to higher bylaw fines, $1,000 for a first offence, and double after that.

“The fine is only as good as it’s enforced,” he said. “Every night, you could see a million dollars worth of fines if we had the police and bylaw working together. This isn’t just a small group of precious individuals concerned about their sleep. This is a very serious life and death issue.”

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For McKinley, the noise has turned her love of Edmonton’s summer season into something she now tries to escape.

“I used to love being in Edmonton in the summer. And now, because of the noise, I look for ways to get out of Edmonton in the summer.”

cnguyen@postmedia.com

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