Traffic on Toronto's Gardiner Expressway. There are ways for governments to tame the plague of roaring cars and motorbikes, writes Marcus Gee.Cole Burston/The Canadian Press
It is springtime at last and the city is full of the sounds of the season: the buzzing of bees, the trilling of birds, the laughing of children – and the roaring of engines. With the return of the good weather, souped-up, pimped-out cars and motorcycles have poured back onto the streets. The racket is tremendous.
In the past few years, the angry whines of speeding motorbikes and the rumbles of unmuffled speedsters have become a constant and obnoxious feature of urban life. They disrupt sleep, drown out conversation and add to the feeling – growing in Canadian cities – that things are spinning out of control.
Toronto’s city councillors want to do something about it. They voted this week to look into using new technologies such as “noise cameras,” which photograph the licence plates of excessively loud vehicles so that authorities can issue tickets. Several major cities, including Berlin, Paris and New York, have tested or deployed the devices.
The trouble is that Toronto needs the approval of Queen’s Park, and the chances of getting it are next to nil. The government of Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford just banned speed cameras, which were helping cities curb dangerous drivers. Why would it approve cameras to catch noisy ones?
The Ford government helped cause the problem in the first place by ending regular inspections of vehicle exhaust systems. That made it less risky for drivers to install devices that make their vehicles issue the loud burps and bangs that punctuate summer days.
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Toronto is right to push for action on the issue. A 2017 report by Toronto Public Health said a “growing body of evidence” shows that excessive noise can affect people’s hearing, cardiovascular fitness and mental health. About 60 per cent of Toronto noise comes from traffic.
The city has updated its noise bylaws accordingly. A change in 2019 increased fines, put a decibel limit on motorcycles and banned the unnecessary revving of engines. Updates in 2024 further toughened the rules.
And yet the din continues. The police seem either unwilling or unable to nab offenders. Enforcement campaigns by cops and bylaw officers have had meagre results.
To be fair to the police, they can’t be roaming around looking for noisy vehicles all the time. Even if they come across one, they have to decide whether the noise is truly excessive and whether to give chase if the vehicle is moving at speed – often a dangerous proposition.
They are up against a growing cohort of entitled scofflaws intent on showing the world what tough guys they are. To serve this segment of wannabe cowboys, the auto maker Stellantis just announced plans to start selling a line of Ram “muscle trucks.” The top model of the Rumble Bee has a supercharged “Hellcat” engine.
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Members of this preening tribe can buy an array of devices and modifications that enable their vehicles to make all manner of startling and intimidating sounds – music to their ears but an assault on others.
Holding back the tide is tough – but not impossible. Over the decades, Canadian cities have managed to tame the other kinds of pollution that plagued them, from noxious smells to tainted rivers. The quality of urban air and water is much better than it was in our grandparents’ time. Cleaning up the urban soundscape should be doable, too.
In its motion on the problem this week, Toronto council asked the province to crack down on garages that install banned aftermarket noisemaking kits. Noise cameras are another option, if only the province would agree. The technology is getting better, and no one who goes roaring down the street in a flashy car can claim a sacred right to privacy.
Better education about the rules could also help. A recent video posted by police in London, Ont., shows an officer pulling cars over and telling the drivers they can’t be on the road with modifications that produce ear-splitting backfire noises and other jarring effects.
Politely but firmly, the officer explains that police are trying to do two things: make the roads safer by discouraging speeding and control the noise pollution that is lowering the quality of life for other residents. Hear, hear.