Dover residents seek relief from turnpike's roar

DOVER — When David Johnson was in his driveway explaining why he has been lobbying for sound walls to reduce the noise from the nearby Spaulding Turnpike, it was hard to hear him.

About 250 feet behind him was a stream of 18-wheelers, flatbed trucks, dump trucks, box trucks and cars passing his home on Renaud Avenue in plain sight with little to block the sound and site of the highway.

“In the summertime when you want to be outside and enjoy it, you really can’t. You can’t sit in your back yard and have a conversation,” Johnson said. The sound is “never-ending and increasing.”

Daniel Hurley lives on Keating Avenue, just a few houses away. He is even closer – about 150 feet away from the Spaulding in the neighborhood just south of the Exit 7 interchange in Dover.

Hurley moved to the city in 1988. “It’s like night and day compared to what it was,” he said of the sound. “It’s now exponentially much louder than what it used to be.”

Johnson bought his home in 2003. “We heard it,” he said when they were looking at the house. “But it wasn’t as bad as it is now. I mean, it’s just nonstop.”

Dover has been among the fastest growing communities in the state for many years in a row and is in a growing Strafford County. Johnson believes this development has contributed to the increased traffic, and therefore noise, on the roads. Up until about 18 months ago, there were trees along Keating Avenue where it borders the highway that blocked the view of it that also deflected some of the sound, but they were cut down for a city drainage project. Trees have been replanted, but it will take years before they grow to block the road.

Hurley started seeking sound relief years ago, and in 2006, the state Department of Transportation had the sound level tested on his property. Based on the sound level taken over 20 minutes during evening rush hour, the DOT measured 65.7 dBA, a decibel reading that in basic terms equates to an average sound level. Jonathan Evans, the DOT’s air and noise program manager, said those noise levels would qualify for noise abatement under the state’s standards.

Johnson has since taken up the cause, getting all of his neighbors to sign a petition and showing up at the DOT meetings advocating for the project. He’s also had DOT officials and state Sen. David Watters, D-Dover, out to visit the neighborhood and hear the traffic for themselves.

If the turnpike in the area were expanded or upgraded, the DOT would likely build a sound wall to help reduce sound levels for the neighborhood. That would be known as a Type I highway project, and the walls would be paid entirely by the state. The sound walls recently installed along the highway near Exit 6 came as the result of the Dover-Newington Spaulding Turnpike expansion and were fully paid for by the state.

But since the section of the turnpike near Renaud and Keating avenues is not under construction, it would be known as a Type II highway project. In these projects, the municipality needs to be a vested partner in the process, contributing 20 percent to the cost as well as enacting regulations that “require avoidance, minimization or mitigation of exterior highway traffic noise impacts associated with new noise sensitive development adjacent to state highways.” Basically, the city has to agree not to create any more areas that would require noise abatement in the future.

Dover in its fiscal year 2020 Capital Improvement Program budgetary guide included $80,000 for noise abatement for FY 2025, the 20 percent match for what city officials estimate to be a $400,000 project. The city still needs to enact the zoning and planning regulations to meet the state requirements, but Assistant City Manager Christopher Parker, who heads the Planning Department, said the city would look to enact those regulations before FY 2025.

The other part, which is likely to be the most challenging, is getting the state to include it in its 10-year highway plan and then fund it. Since the DOT enacted its Type II program in 2016, it has yet to have money allocated for such projects.

Like Keating and Renaud neighborhood, residents in the Pannaway Manor neighborhood in Portsmouth have long lobbied for sound walls to help reduce the constant noise from Interstate 95 where some houses stand only 150 feet away. City officials estimate it would cost upwards of $4.9 million, in which the city would have to pay 20 percent, or $600,000, of the cost. In its FY 2019 CIP, Portsmouth planned to start banking away $100,000 a year from FY 2020 to FY 2025 to raise that money. But also like the Dover neighborhood, the project would need to be included in the state's 10-year plan and funded.

Bill Cass, DOT's assistant commissioner and chief engineer, told the Pannaway residents earlier this year there are about 40 locations in the state that have been identified as possible sites for sound barriers, but it’s a matter of funding and prioritizing.

Johnson and Hurley are hopeful relief could be in their future.

“I’m overall positive that this will happen,” Hurley said. “What’s frustrating is all the red tape you have to go through to get this problem fixed. It’s a lengthy process, and it shouldn’t be.”