SOUNDSCAPE: PVD Noise Project Blog

Providence mayors and the executive-branch agencies they control are primarily responsible
for managing municipal noise levels, so we organize our blog posts by mayoral administration.

Mayor Brett Smiley (2023–2027)

• Federal Judge: EPA Can’t Ignore Noise Pollution (7/22/2026)
• Noise Project’s 2025 Ward 2 special-election candidate survey (11/3/2025)
• Noise Project: “We oppose performative leafblower laws” (10/2/2025)
• “How Noise Affects Our Health” (podcast transcript) (8/8/2025)
• Noise Project: PVD sound meters are ‘deja vu all over again’ (10/6/2024)
• Noise Project 2024 RI General Assembly candidate survey results (9/9/2024)
• ‘The Sound of Near Silence’: Electric lawncare (article re-print) (5/9/2023)
• PNP letter to City Council leaders on License Board chair (4/12/2023)
• PVD City Council resolution on noise from Bold Point Park (3/29/2023)
• Letter to City Council president on License Board chair vote (1/30/2023)

Second term of Mayor Jorge Elorza (2018–2022)

• Noise Project 2022 mayoral and City Council election endorsements (9/12/2022)
• 2022 Noise Project letter to second-term Mayor Jorge Elorza (8/13/2022)
• Noise section of Ward 1 City Councilmember’s 2022 ‘quality of life’ plan (7/22/2022)
• ‘Eliminating’ noise without REDUCING it: PVD Planning Dept’s Dike Street project (5/27/2022)
• ‘Hearing Too Much in a Noisy World’ (Wall Street Journal article) (12/20/2021)
• 2021 City Council Ward 15 special-election candidate Casi Inez’s platform (6/30/2021)
• 2021 City Council Ward 15 special-election candidate Doris De Los Santos on noise (6/3/2021)
• 1976 RI Assembly study on limiting noise from motor vehicles (11/1/2020)
• Noise complaints from 2020 West Elmwood / 02907 Health-Equity Zone report (10/14/2020)
• Environmentalists used to fight noise (7/9/2020)
• Globe article: Noise report-cards for Boston neighborhoods (8/6/2019)