Noise Project Policy Proposals

“It is hereby declared to be the policy of the city to prohibit unnecessary, excessive, and offensive noise from all sources subject to its police power, for the sole purpose of securing and promoting the public health, comfort, safety, and welfare of the citizenry.”

Providence municipal code (Chapter 16, Article III)

As is true of every other area of public health and municipal policy, preventing excessive and unhealthy noise is a far better strategy — and also easier and cheaper — than trying to address it after the fact. Below are some of the Noise Project’s proposals for reducing noise through prevention.

Prevention 101: Measure noise • Public education • Deterrence • Reduce recidivism

Modernize Prevention: Best practices • Technology • Devices • Civilian enforcement

Step Zero: A Public and Proactive Noise Policy

A modern metropolis of Providence’s size and stature should have a comprehensive, proactive, and publicly posted noise policy — not an effectively meaningless policy declaration like the one above (which is routinely ignored by mayors and City Council members), or aspirational statements about addressing the issue, or internal policies known only to those in the inner circle at City Hall.

Publicly posting Providence’s operational noise policy would communicate to residents that city authorities are serious about reducing noise, are actively engaged in doing so, and are accountable to the public for the results (or lack thereof) of those efforts.

At a minimum, an active municipal noise policy should include:

  • Declare excessive noise a significant public health issue — much like unaffordable housing, lead waterpipes, and other civic concerns the city is actively addressing for the well-being of its residents — and include noise in municipal public-health programs and education efforts.
  • Publicly delineate the specific noise-reduction measures (see Noise Project recommendations below) that the city is either already engaged in or plans to implement to address the most prevalent vehicular, residential, and commercial noise sources — and publicly designate a civilian official responsible for their implementation.1
  • Actively analyze the results of city noise-reduction efforts, and report them to the public on a regular basis — both of which are things that 2022 mayoral candidate Brett Smiley said he would do if elected mayor, but has not actually followed through on.
  • Collaborate with the Rhode Island Departments of Health (RIDOH) and Environmental Management (RIDEM) — neither of which currently does anything to measure or otherwise address noise in urban areas — as well as non-profit organizations (including the Noise Project), the Providence Public School District, neighborhood associations, and individual city residents.

    Democratic government is participatory, and is not limited to voting every four years — or attending performative hearings to get the chance speak for three minutes on a city policy or ordinance that has clearly already been decided even before public testimony.

Currently in the fourth year (2026) of his first term, Mayor Brett Smiley’s administration still hasn’t done any of those things. If Providence residents don‘t know what the city is actually doing to address noise, how can they evaluate whether it is succeeding or failing?

Noise Prevention 101: Measure, Educate, Deter

Measure Noise in the City

Just as cities around the world measure air pollution and other health and environmental issues, Providence should measure sound levels around the city on an ongoing basis — especially in residential areas, which have lower limits under city ordinances — to determine baseline noise levels, hourly / weekly / seasonal variations, and the actual effectiveness of its noise-reduction efforts.

Those sound-level readings should be made public (i.e., not require journalists or non-profit groups to file APRA requests for it2) — along with data on noise reports to the police — so residents can understand their exposure to unhealthy noise levels in the broader context of the city-wide soundscape. As with other forms of air pollution, people have a right to information about environmental conditions in the areas which they live, work, and socialize.

It’s worth noting that, in his response to the Noise Project’s survey of 2022 candidates for Providence mayor, then-candidate Brett Smiley said:

“As part of a review of the noise level in our city and improved enforcement, noise should be measured on an ongoing basis in order to produce consistent data. Like any other issue we would study, we need the technology and the policies in place to properly measure this issue in order to make the best decision for our community.”

The survey also asked all three candidates if, as mayor, their administration would issue annual reports on noise levels in Providence and the specific polices and actions the city government is taking to address them. Smiley responded that, “[R]egular reporting and data collection are important to the decision-making process.”

As of May 2025, however, the city neither measures noise nor reports on its specific polices and actions to reduce it, other than occasional aspirational statements to the media. As a result, the Noise Project has begun measuring noise in Providence ourselves.

Provide Hearing Tests for City Residents —and as an alternative to / “diversion” from second-offense fines

As part of its efforts to collect noise-related data, the city should institute a program to conduct free or low-cost hearing tests for residents — especially pre-teens — to determine whether exposure to excessive sound levels has resulted in permanent hearing loss and other adverse health effects.

Diminished hearing is not the only or the most severe physiological effect of noise exposure, but in the absence of other noise-related health data, it can serve as a proxy for exposure to excessive sound levels for extended periods of time, and provide an opportunity to prevent further damage.

As a means of gathering data on the health effects of excessive noise levels, the city should allow those assessed a fine for their second noise-ordinance violation (i.e., after a warning for the first offense) to discharge the fine by undergoing a hearing test by a qualified audiologist. The person tested would learn about any hearing loss, and the city would get anonymized data on noise levels.

Conduct an Ongoing Public-Education Campaign

Providence conducts outreach campaigns to encourage residents’ participation in and compliance with various public policies such garbage collection, recycling, and winter snow shoveling. A city-wide initiative to reduce excessive noise must include a campaign to educate the public about:

  • The adverse health effects of excessive noise on residents’ health — This should involve all of the city’s outreach and communications tools and platforms. In addition to protecting children by educating their parents, the negative long-term effects of noise should also be part of the Providence Public School District’s health and environmental curriculums.
  • The municipal and state laws that regulate sound levels — Residents are often misinformed about what local and state laws allow, especially with regard to noise on private property. The city government frequently cites this lack of information as a cause for noise infractions, yet it does nothing to publicize sound limits.
  • Providence’s official policies to reduce noise levels, especially in residential areas — The city needs to actively promote its noise-reduction policies to the public, as it does with other policy initiatives, rather than simply implementing them behind the scenes. Changing the city’s dysfunctional culture of noise requires public officials to be unabashed in publicizing the city’s abatement activities.

Deter Unhealthy Noise by Consistently Enforcing Existing Laws

Violating municipal sound limits is a non-violent infraction that rarely poses an imminent danger to city residents,3 but excessive noise undeniably affects the long-term health of everyone exposed to it — whether they know or acknowledge it — and should be proactively addressed on a broad social level, rather than a reactive incident-by-incident basis.4

The purpose of law enforcement is not punishment, but deterrence.5 Preventing noise is obviously preferable to trying to address its effects afterward. It’s equally clear from the ongoing level of excessive and unnecessary noise in Providence that the city is no longer effectively deterring it: A small cohort of people violates noise-related regulations with impunity, as they face few if any consequences for doing so. Unless the city enforces its laws, they are effectively pointless, and city officials who talk about noise without taking effective steps to curtail it just breed more cynicism.

No residential areas of a city should simply be deemed “loud neighborhoods” where supposedly “no one cares” about noise — not least because they do, and they are suffering the adverse effects of noise in ways they may not associate with excessive sound levels. Education can help residents see the effects, but information alone won’t deter the relatively small cohort who make most of the noise.

All Providence officials and employees — including the police, Board of Licenses, and other executive branch and City Council members and staff — should be familiar with city noise ordinances and policies (starting with the declaration at the top of this page), and noise denialism by individual officials or staff should be refuted as contrary to public health, municipal law, and formal city policy.

Among the most basic components of noise enforcement are to publicize the process for reporting excessive noise — and the steps the city takes in response to noise complaints — as well as informing residents about the outcome of their complaints. This would be a distinct contrast to the current opaque and subjective procedural “black box” that residents neither understand nor trust.

After receiving a single, one-time (not daily / weekly / monthly) warning, those who repeatedly violate the city’s sound-level ordinance should receive a citation. The city should allow first-time infractions to be resolved by providing the option to take a city-provided hearing test within 15 days of the date of the citation. The results will help to inform the noise-maker and public health officials about the degree to which exposure to excessive noise is causing permanent hearing loss among residents.

Target noise recidivism / impunity

One obvious and yet seemingly ignored enforcement measure would be to identify and address the small number of “repeat offenders” who generate a disproportionate share of unhealthy and unnecessary noise in Providence with relative impunity.

The city‘s existing Nuisance Task Force is specifically designed for such an effort — its official definition of a nuisance is “any property that, by virtue of condition, activity, or situation, poses a threat to the health, safety, or welfare of the community or that otherwise interferes with the quiet use and enjoyment of nearby properties” — yet seems under-utilized for that purpose.

The Nuisance Task Force includes representatives from the City Solicitor’s Office, the Police Department, the Fire Department, the Department of Inspection and Standards and the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office.

Noise Policy, Part 2: Modernize Noise Prevention

In addition to developing, implementing, and promoting an active, comprehensive, and effective public policy to reduce unhealthy noise levels as described above, there are several measures the city should take to move its noise-reduction efforts beyond the traditional strategies that have not kept up with current realities.

Learn from Best Practices

Urban noise is a global issue, and cities around the world have developed innovative measures to address a wide range of noise pollution sources — in most cases, to a far greater degree than those in the U.S. Providence should study the most effective means being employed in other U.S. and international cities, seek their advice and learn from their experiences, and adapt the most effective practices to our specific needs.6

Mayor Smiley frequently attends conferences that include the mayors of other U.S. cities, and he should lead his colleagues in an active effort to identify and implement the most effective means of reducing excessive unhealthy noise is urban areas.

Utilize Existing Technology

Much as technology has helped address speeding and red-light running, technical means to deter mobile noise sources such as vehicles with modified mufflers or over-amplified stereos has emerged in recent years.

Providence and other Rhode Island and U.S. cities already use speed cameras to deter dangerous driving near schools, and should expedite the adoption of similar “noise cameras” in areas prone to excessive noise from vehicles. (The city has long touted noise cameras, but failed to deploy them.)

These stationary devices are triggered when passing vehicles generate noise above a certain decibel threshold, and take a picture of the offending vehicle’s license plate. The owner or driver is then issued a citation for non-compliance with noise statutes. As with current photo tickets, noise-related summons would be reviewed by a sworn police officer and be subject to challenge in a due-process administrative hearing.

Enforce / Enact Laws on Deliberate Noise-Producing Devices

The use of noise-amplifying “after market” mufflers (e.g., glass pack and straight-pipe exhausts, exhaust tips, etc) is already a violation of both Providence municipal code (Sec. 16-99) and Rhode Island state law, yet they are openly sold and commercially installed in the city and state — despite the fact that they can’t legally be used here.7

Prohibiting modified muffler sales — and actively enforcing such a ban — obviously won’t prevent offenders from buying them elsewhere, but would make the costs and effort of doing so greater, and thus inhibit their use to some degree. It would also serve to end the city and state’s mixed messaging on the issue.

Combined with increased enforcement of local and state vehicle exhaust laws,8 a sales ban would help curtail one of the most prevalent — and utterly indefensible — sources of excessive and unnecessary noise that Providence residents are exposed to on a recurrent basis.

Providence should similarly amend its shambolic leafblower ordinance — which takes seven years to finally end their use, and relies on weak enforcement provisions — and use more robust enforcement measures to help fund an incentive program to encourage residents to transition from polluting tools to cleaner and quieter electric models.

Cities, states, and other communities across the U.S. have banned the use of gas-fueled leafblowers and other uses of extremely loud, polluting, and unhealthy two-stroke engines such as lawnmowers and other landscaping equipment, scooters, mini-bikes / go-karts, in far less time — on average about three years — as a way of reducing noise and other forms of toxic air pollution.9

Among the Noise Project’s recommendations to the City Council for the leafblower ordinance — which were summarily ignored — was prohibiting their use on one weekend day, and ending sales of gas-fueled leafblowers in the city. Like a wide range of mobility platforms, dirty internal-combustion landscaping equipment is gradually and inevitably being eclipsed by electric-powered versions, and a declining market for the former would hasten the transition to the latter.

Re-Imagine Noise Enforcement

At the risk of seeming overly cynical, we find it increasingly difficult to avoid the idea that the city’s historical insistence on leaving noise enforcement to the police is done with a clear awareness that the police aren’t well-designed to handle the task and don‘t actually want to do it (with the obvious implications that has) — and, not surprisingly, aren’t very good at it. The simple fact is that police enforcement does not demonstrably reduce noise levels — and that’s how some people want it.

In the context of the national discussion around re-imagining law enforcement methods and philosophy,10 Providence should establish a small group of unarmed, civilian “noise-reduction officers” (NROs) whose role would be to observe and cite noise violations — in the same way that traffic-control officers issue tickets to illegally parked cars in many U.S. and international cities.

NROs would be based in neighborhoods, be assisted by audio-video technology such as sound meters and cameras, and be able to call for police assistance if and when needed. As is currently the case with noise citations, anyone who received one from an NRO would be able to challenge it in a due-process administrative hearing. NROs would serve to lower the police profile in communities, and their single-issue focus could provide opportunities for non-judicial resolution of noise issues. Using armed officers to address a loud stereo is an inefficient use of public resources.

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1 The continued lack of a noise policy — and designated city official to implement it (other than the mayor‘s chief of staff, who implements all city policies) — indicates that he considers it to be at worst a public (and political) inconvenience, akin to parking or litter control, rather than a threat to the health and well-being of Providence residents and visitors.

This compartmentalized approach is unlikely to significantly reduce the prevalence of excessive noise over the long term — to say nothing of shifting the systemic and dysfunctional culture that enables and even encourages it — and, like the city’s noise-policy declaration (in the gray box at the top of the page), seems more performative than serious.

2 Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha has admonished the state and municipal governments for obstructing open-access statutes by requiring citizens to file public-record requests to obtain even the most basic official information.

3 At sufficiently high volume, however, even very brief exposure to sound can permanently damage hearing — especially for children. Given repeated instances of loud noise levels that Project volunteers have observed in the city, some residents have almost certainly suffered hearing loss, which may at least partly explain their continued insistence on excessive volume levels.

4 The City Council deliberately changed municipal law to legally authorize (see Sec. 16-109) police and other city officials to pro-actively curtail excessive vehicular, residential, and commercial noise on their own initiative, rather than ignoring it in the absence of a resident report.

5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterrence_(penology)

6 Newport, RI, preceded Providence in testing noise cameras, even though the capital city’s noise levels are far worse — demonstrating that political will, rather than any specific technology, is the most important aspect of effective public policy.

7 If you know of any other products that are illegal to use yet are legally marketed, sold, and / or installed, please tell us. Explosive fireworks, for example, are illegal to use and cannot be legally sold.

8 Given that those who violate noise laws effectively “announce” their non-compliance, it should not be difficult to find them, as demonstrated by the city’s crackdown on illegal fireworks in the Spring / Summer of 2020 and ever since. Locating those making noise has never been the issue in Providence — but being willing to even try has (see footnote 6 above).

9 Two-stroke engines also represent a serious threat to the long-term hearing and respiratory health of their operators, unless professional-grade earplugs and masks are worn properly and consistently during their use, which is relatively rare.

10 “A Revolution in Public Safety Is Underway,” New York Times (May 30, 2025)