Housing Type and Tenure Effects on Reactions to Road Traffic Noise

The reactions of different residents to the same level of noise have been assumed to vary depending upon their type of housing and tenure status. However, no empirical evidence has been presented to support this assumption. The analysis described in this paper tests the separate and joint effects of housing type and tenure on various reactions to road traffic noise, with the use of questionnaire data and noise measurements collected at residential sites near to major highways in the Toronto region of southern Ontario. The results show that neither housing type nor tenure has any consistent effect on residents' reactions to road traffic noise. The working assumption in the literature is therefore not supported. Two important conclusions follow from this: first, that no one type of housing is clearly more appropriate in residential areas near to major highways; and second, that a policy of setting different noise standards for different types of residential area cannot be supported.