sydney-city-centre-review-of-environmental-factors

A do-something scenario reporting the change in operational noise due to the
existing noise plus the future development of other committed transport
projects in the city centre including the proposal.
Operational noise impacts are affected by a number of factors:
Traffic speed
Traffic volumes and composition (eg the percentage of heavy vehicles)
Number of traffic lanes resulting in traffic passing closer to sensitive receivers
Reduced kerb extension and footpath width bringing traffic closer to sensitive
receiver
The height of the receiver relative to ground level and the reverberant effects
along roads flanked by high-rise buildings.
The proposal would affect all the above factors with the exception of traffic speed and
traffic composition, which is not anticipated to change. With regard to traffic volumes,
the assessment used the largest predicted changes introduced under the capacity
improvements (refer to Attachment C of Appendix D). The assessment also
accounted for the locations where the road configuration layout would be altered to
increase the number of traffic lanes on the approach to or exit from an intersection.
In some locations new traffic lanes would be created by time-restricting kerbside
allocations and creating no-stopping zones at certain times of the day. The
assessment assumed the lanes would be permanently created in all instances. The
assessment therefore adopted a worst case approach, assuming traffic would pass
closer to sensitive receivers for more of the time that it would do in reality. To account
for the reverberant noise effects described above 1 dB was added to the noise
results as described further in Appendix D.
Table 6-19 reports the predicted change in road traffic noise between the ‘do nothing’
and ‘do something’ scenarios, with predictions based on changes in traffic volumes
and lane arrangements.
Table 6-19
Predicted change in operational road traffic noise due to proposal
Work site
Precinct 1: north-west
Predicted change in road traffic
noise level
(dB)
Day
Night
NW1: Kent Street 0 to 0.4 0 to 0.4
NW2: King Street 0 to 1.1 0 to 1.1
Precinct 2: retail
R1: Park Street 0.5 0.5
R2: Market Street 1 to 2 1 to 2
R3: Sussex Street 0 0
R4: Clarence Street 0.4 to 1.4 0.4 to 1.4
R5: York Street 0 0
Sydney City Centre Capacity Improvement 225
Review of Environmental Factors