# Roadway noise

Roadway noise (highway noise or highway traffic noise) is the total sound energy emanating from motor vehicles moving on roadway surfaces. Roadway noise generates a large share of the total noise pollution.

## Quotes

* Road-traffic noise significantly slows the development of crucial memory and attention skills in primary school children, research has found. The study of almost 2,700 children aged between seven and 10 in 38 schools in Barcelona, Spain, is the first to assess the impact of traffic noise on child cognitive development over time and to determine the impact of peaks in noise. The children in the study are in a critical stage for the development of memory and attention skills, which are essential to learning. The research found that children exposed to about three times more traffic in the street than other pupils had memory development that was 23% slower and attention ability development 5% slower over a year.
** Damian Carrington, (2 June 2022)"Traffic noise slows children’s memory development, study finds". The Guardian.
* Noise pollution is expanding at an unprecedented rate and is increasingly associated with impaired reproduction and development across taxa. However, whether noise sound waves are intrinsically harmful for developing young—or merely disturb parents—and the fitness consequences of early exposure remain unknown. Here, by only manipulating the offspring, we show that sole exposure to noise in early life in zebra finches has fitness consequences and causes embryonic death during exposure. Exposure to pre- and postnatal traffic noise cumulatively impaired nestling growth and physiology and aggravated telomere shortening across life stages until adulthood. Consistent with a long-term somatic impact, early life noise exposure, especially prenatally, decreased individual offspring production throughout adulthood. Our findings suggest that the effects of noise pollution are more pervasive than previously realized.
** Alizée Meillère, Katherine L. Buchanan, Justin R. Eastwood, and Mylene M. Mariette, "Pre-and postnatal noise directly impairs avian development, with fitness consequences." Science 384, no. 6694 (2024): 475-480. (25 April 2024)"Pre- and postnatal noise directly impairs avian development, with fitness consequences" 384 (6694): 475–480. DOI:10.1126/science.ade5868.
* ... Many bird species use acoustic communication to establish and maintain their territories and for intra-pair and adult–young communication. Noise pollution can impact negatively on breeding success and biorhythm if this communication is masked by noise and the individuals must adjust their singing activity. Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) is a common bird species of agricultural landscapes whose population is declining due to agricultural intensification. It is found also in habitats near highways with forest steppe-like characteristics, where it is affected by the high levels of anthropogenic noise pollution. ... Our results showed that Yellowhammer’s singing activity changed in localities close to highways compared to agricultural landscape. With increasing long-term traffic intensity on highways, song duration of the Yellowhammer song was decreasing. The present traffic intensity led to later onset of dawn chorus and decreasing strophe length with increasing number of passing vehicles. Furthermore, in the agricultural landscape, Yellowhammer’s song duration increased with increasing distance from the nearest road.
** Aneta Ritz-Radlinská, Vojtěch Barták, Lenka Hodačová, Kristýna Maidlová, and Petr Zasadil, (3 April 2023)"The singing activity of the Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) under traffic noise around highways". Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 11. DOI:10.3389/fevo.2023.1020982.
* More than 45 million people live, work, or attend school within 300 feet of a major transportation facility in the United States alone ... These facilities include heavily traveled highways that can cause adverse noise effects. ... In addition to annoyance and speech interference, recent studies have reported on links between highway traffic noise and health effects. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported on environmental health effects, including heart disease, sleep disturbance, and cognitive impairment in children. WHO states, “... at least one million healthy life years are lost every year from traffic-related noise in the western part of Europe” (WHO, 2011). These human health issues as well as the effects of highway traffic noise on wildlife are a growing concern. To help minimize the effects of highway traffic noise, researchers and practitioners must understand the noise sources, how the sound propagates to nearby communities, and how to reduce noise levels at the source, during propagation, or at the receiver. Further challenges lie in establishing and implementing highway traffic noise policies.
** Judith L. Rochat and Darlene Reiter, (Winter 2016)"Highway Traffic Noise". Acoustics Today 12 (4): 38–47. (quote from p. 38)

## See also

* Environmentalism
* Pollution

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on Roadway noise on Wikipedia