News Plus慢速英语:美国纽约室外噪音最扰民 法律虽严执行困难

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They call New York the city that never sleeps. Who can get any shut-eye with all the noise?!
Screeching subway trains, honking cars, roaring planes, barking dogs and boisterous people make noise the Big Apple's No. 1 quality-of-life complaint.
A city hotline got more than 260,000 noise complaints last year.
Silence, it seems, is the one thing in this city of more than 8 million that's almost impossible to find, despite a major crackdown on excessive noise.

One of the lesser-known legacies of the recently ended 12-year tenure of Mayor Michael Bloomberg was one of the nation's toughest noise codes. Under it, every construction site must post a noise mitigation plan, while excessive noise from restaurants, sidewalks, even garbage trucks is illegal.
Tickets range from 70 dollars for a barking dog to 350 dollars for honking your horn to as much as 8,000 dollars for a nightclub playing loud music.
But despite thousands of violation notices filed with the city last year, health officials warn there are still plenty of places where decibels top 85. This level with prolonged exposure can cause hearing damage.
Some parts of the city frequently exceed 100 decibels, especially where planes swoop a few hundred feet over rooftops.
While there is no comprehensive list, these are among the most frequent sources of complaints for life-altering noise: Time Square traffic, screeching subways, takeoffs and landings, and Brooklyn's DUMBO, or Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, which is a former manufacturing district with lofty warehouses and sweeping Manhattan views that has become one of the city's artiest places.