A UNM professor is conducting research on the health effects of loud traffic and has even invented a noise tracker.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — It’s not hard to find an open space or nice park to take a relaxing walk in the park but sometimes the city noise, like loud cars, can interrupt that.
Nick Ferenchak, an associate professor at UNM and the president of Not-A-Loud, came up with a new piece of technology that could minimize vehicle. Ferenchak came up with it five years ago after countless sleepless nights, noisy hikes and extensive research on noise and its impact on our health.
“We hike a lot in the Sandia Mountains, and it always kind of, interested me that, you know, you can be up in the Sandia is. It’s absolutely beautiful. You can’t see the city at all, but you can still hear it,” he said. “You can hear the cars racing up and down Tramway. It just struck me as if a loud vehicle drives all the way to ten miles up and down Tramway, how many people are they going to wake up at night?”
Ferenchak’s noise tracker works similar to a speed camera. The noise tracker has a camera and a microphone. It can capture a license plate of a car going over the speed limit.
“We can actually hear what was going on. Was it a gunshot? Was it a leaf blower, or was it actually a motor vehicle?” he said.
As of now, the state of New Mexico has no noise regulations. There is a noise ordinance in Albuquerque, Rio Rancho and Santa Fe, however.
Ferenchak said Lead, Coal, Broadway and Avenida Cesar Chavez are all hot spots for noise and speeding. For people around those areas, he added it can have long-term health effects.
“There’s lots of research connecting noise pollution to adverse health outcomes. So if you’re waking up three times in the night because loud vehicles keep on racing by, that’s going to impact your health. It’s been correlated with increased, blood pressure, stress, all kinds of different things. So we’re going to hopefully improve public health,” he said.
Pilot programs of the technology kicked off in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Still, there is nothing permanent yet.
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