The above depicts a noise level monitoring display facing a residential street at a rather large site currently under construction for a big something in Mihara, Japan. I don’t know the “something” because I can’t read Japanese (yet), but it’s big and there are tonka toys involved.

This is to infer that Japan has rules about noise created at constructions sites, forces companies to provide real-time noise level information to nearby residents (and tourists who tend to walk residential streets in Japan instead of visiting temples like all the other tourists), and sets regulations that such displays must have the decibel reading large enough that even half-blind people like me can read the numbers.

Btw, the photo taken above was early morning, before the tonka toys were in motion, etc. That said, wouldn’t it be great to have such requirements for construction projects here in the States? Just to pick an example, what if such monitors/displays encircled road projects like the re-do of I-25 at Montgomery and Comanche?

Communities around our country, including Albuquerque, are having public discussions about addressing noise. You probably have been keeping up with those discussions better than have I. I’d love to have noise monitors/cameras put on every street in the United States, most particularly the streets called “Coors Boulevard” and “Rio Bravo Boulevard” in Albuquerque. I’m much more interested/in favor of that over Flock cameras and facial recognition fascism. But I fear “Murrican freedom” to be obnoxiously loud while driving to the Walmart will continue to win out in this country.

Have a good, serene as possible weekend, everybody.