St. Louis to discuss preliminary sound barrier report next week

Director General Bruce St. Louis told the Examiner last week that he had recently received the report, which was written by a hired consultant.

"I have not finished going through it in any great detail yet," he said.

However, St. Louis said that after he meets with an acoustical engineer attached to the project, he'll be summarizing the preliminary findings next Wednesday to the Safety, Utilities and Environment Committee of city council.

Although Westmount city council is holding its monthly public meeting next Monday evening, St. Louis did not disclose when the City plans to release details of the report.

The 30-metre prototype wall, mounted on concrete pillars with a transparent plastic top, was installed next to the Ville Marie Expressway and the CP Rail tracks at a cost of $350,000 to the City of Westmount.

Should it prove successful, at least $8 million more could eventually be spent completing a mile-long wall that would extend the length of the expressway and the rail line. In the past, some residents in the area objected that a conventional concrete sound barrier would obliterate their view of the cityscape beyond the tracks.

The City hopes to get answers to certain questions with the project, such as how will the prototype bear up to abuse like graffiti, and whether it will accumulate dirt from the expressway.

Sound tests of the prototype wall's effectiveness have been underway since its completion. The field work was followed up with computer simulations using gathered data.

While only the technical details will reveal whether the wall is truly effective, so far it has received good reviews from local residents. In the days and weeks after its completion, the initial reaction from some residents was that there was less noise.

Westmount has been attempting to deal with noise from the expressway for decades. A survey of residents several years ago revealed that 85 per cent were in favour of a sound barrier. A medical study also concluded that prolonged exposure to the level of decibels near the railway and expressway, measuring around 85, is harmful to health.