“Noise is the New Smoking”
In 2023, newly elected Providence Mayor Brett Smiley proposed addressing excessive noise by purchasing hand-held noise meters for Providence Police, which sounded oddly familiar to Noise Project volunteers. The text below is from Providence City Council member Jo-Ann Ryan’s Oct. 2017 News & Notes blog: We asked Mayor Smiley’s office what happened to the noise … Read more
Download a copy of the document below in PDF format
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The Noise Project sent a two-page survey regarding noise issues to all three candidates for Providence mayor, as well as all of the ballot-qualified candidates for City Council (including incumbents / those running unopposed). Below are our endorsements in the primary election. After much deliberation, we split our endorsement for mayor between City Council member Nirva LaFortune and … Read more
Noise Project letter to Mayor Elorza* _______________ * Mayor Elorza never acknowledged or responded to our letter.
Ward 1 City Council member John Goncalves didn’t say or do much about noise after issuing his plan.
* The Noise Project emphasizes that noise is far more than just a quality-of-life issue. Goncalves subsequently lost his 2026 re-election primary. Source: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RjBceIrnLs59qcH8t3-HWHrMrZfuGM-E/view
In May 2016, the Providence Planning Department convened a group of neighborhood stakeholders to discuss plans to upgrade the infrastructure around what it refers to as the “Dike Street area” — the bathtub-shaped area south of Olneyville Square bounded by Plainfield / Westminster Street and Route 6.
One of the issues that stakeholders highlighted was noise levels in the area (see page 22 of the Planning Dept. report on the meeting below). In 2022, the department began to formally implement its plan for the Dike Street area, without any mention of — much less effort to address — ongoing noise issues there.
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Note former Ward 15 City Council member and current Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos facing the camera at the table in the foreground
