Living in the
L.A. metro area, the average person spends an unbelievable amount
of
time each day in the car. Much of this time is spent at a complete
stop: traffic lights, traffic jams, construction and drive-through
tellers provide the mobile human strangely still periods of often
tense and helpless immobility. Most people deal with this unwanted
but inevitable space by laying on the horn, listening to the
radio,
or speaking by mobile phone, in other words, by sounding their
presence to the world. Also, when the car is in motion, the human
is strangely
still, seated for hours, watching the world carefully for signs
of danger and the correct path. Growing up in Detroit, I am
too familiar by the strange dislocated living
conditions brought by cars. The inside of a car is a still, womb-like
chamber, often filled with the scraps and garbage from daily
living,
yet it violently cuts through public space. While driving, people
often forget they can be seen and do things that they would otherwise
only do at home such as pick their noses or sing. The metal and
fiberglass shell of an auto is armor and social protection, even
children feel safe inside: but it is a dangerous, totally flawed
armor. There are more deaths on the road in the United States
than
cancer deaths. The auto makes people feel free to drive where ever,
when ever, but they usually only drive it to and from work, and
occasionally the video shop. It is also very loud.
An automobile
is extremely loud. Its engine, the wind, air conditioning, other
cars,
brakes screeching and tires belching -- just the mechanics are
enough to make a person deaf. Also, in addition to the car noise
itself, people
turn on the radio to excessively loud (expressively loud?), levels.
Even at low levels, the radio must overpower the huge noise that
the auto is already making. Car and truck drivers frequently
experience
hearing loss through the years due to the high volume of noise
they endure on a daily basis.
Trains
Trains are almost
extensions of the street in their public/private dynamics. People
are crowded next to strangers but they maintain a personal private
space. Only during unusual circumstances does this space barrier
break down, even when two people are within inches of one another.
It is a public space, but within that, each person carves out their
small area of personal space. Likewise, the sounds of a train are
both public and private. First you hear the sound of the train itself,
then you hear announcements from the conductor, and the ticket collector.
Traveling companions may be speaking, and this speech, although
not directed at anyone but the intended recipient, may be overheard
by everyone on the train. Train space is a strange daily world of
stillness. In them, each person is alone, and surrounded by others.
The train is also
a massive noise generator. I've experienced painfully deafening
New York City subway rides. Certain screeches and hammers rose
way
above the 150 decibel range, and my fingers were stuck in my ears
from 42nd street to 4th street. Other trains such as the high
speed
TGV in France were engineered to be quiet, and in some cases, tuned
to hum in key with itself, making a more soothing ride, like
a spaceship
to Lyon. Freight trains and other non-passenger trains are seldom
designed for peace and quiet -- their clunking and roaring can
be
heard for miles around. I imagine working inside one must be unbearable,
and probably filled with cheap fm radio tunes.
Like the auto
commuter, the train passenger frequently listens to music, in
this case on
headphones. Headphones vary from make to make, some enclose the
ear to block outside sound thus allowing the listener to keep
volume
levels low. But the commuting majority listen to the cheap headphones
and ear bud style speakers they bought with their cheap walkman
which
they then crank up to rise above the racket of the train, increasing
ear damage daily.
Comparison
Trains are economic,
environmental and social. Cars are luxurious, private, environmentally
damaging and anti social. Trains are frequently late, on strike,
crashing and burning, loud, overcrowded, overpriced, filthy,
bureaucratic,
vicious and violent places. Cars are status symbols of the worst
variety, deadly, overpriced and controlled by
profit-obsessed corporations.
Privately owned train lines and an over bureaucratic yet inefficient
Metro system makes London an unbearable, expensive tangle. Dirty,
late, and overcrowded government owned trains make the bus the
most popular
regional transportation in Spain. (It is overcrowded because
they
don't put enough cars on any given train, preferring to fill 3
cars with standing room only capacity like sardines, than put
4 cars
where everyone sits like a human being. You still have to "reserve"
your standing "seat" early.)
On the light side,
the freedom of the open road, crickets chirping in the cool dusk
air, wind blowing through the windows, make driving a car a wonderful
sensory experience. Likewise, a train blasting through the tunnels
carved out of pure rock in green mountains gives the train unspeakable
romance and heightened sensual imagination. Certain transport
situations
can bring romance, adventure, religious revelations (especially
for those driving through California deserts etc.), and other
filmic long shots of driving into the sunset.
The Neighbors
On the other side
of the commute, the noise of living next to a highway, railway,
elevated train, and other commuting routes can be difficult and
colorful.
The Dutch countryside
offers pleasant, blacktop commuting trails winding through small
communities next to canals. Not meant for cars, square black
bicycles
cruise through these graceful paths with little bells warning of
an otherwise nearly silent passing. On the other side of this
pastoral condition, I lived within one mile of I-75 (one of the
main arteries
in
the
United States, passing from the northern tip of Michigan, to the
southern point of Florida). The sound was an unbelievable
background
roar at all hours of the day and night. It resembles a waterfall
raging just over the next hill, even at distances of 3 miles
away.
I grew accustomed to this sound, it is quite low on the register,
and became soothing in a disembodied and sinister audio hallucination
of incredible capital passing through middle America.
In Toronto, we
lived next to a main intersection: Dundas and College Streets
where streetcars passed on a regular schedule going both East/West
and North/South. Aside from the nice jingling sound of the warning
bell, the smooth hum of friction, and the less-nice screech of
rusty
brakes, the entire area was flooded with sub-bass rumbling impossible
to describe except that pieces of our ceiling crumbled every
time,
and we had to sweep fine dust from the floor up to 3 times a day.
In London we lived next to a main artery of the BritRail going
to
south east England from London Victoria Station. Because the trains
were gaining high speed at the straight section of tracks just
across
the small garden from our flat, every 8 minutes or so we heard
an incredible doppler sweep -- strangely soft -- more like a
swish
of steaming hot water than the bowling ball rumble like we thought
it would sound.
In New York City,
living in the East Village, auto and human traffic was a circus-like
noise show. We lived also on 39th
street next to the Port Authority bus station where the enraged
sounds of bus engines punctuated by screaming sirens permeated
our
daily routine. The air was filled not only with sound, as we soon
learned: our house-mates had to install a carbon monoxide detector
in case the air grew too poisonous and we all had to flee the
studio.
Although fascinating in short durations, intense city noise blasts
at levels high enough to first inflict irritability, then panic,
rage, and and even insanity depending on how long one is exposed
to it. Yet, somehow citizens of Bangkok have learned to live
next to the blasting noise of main streets, and seem somwow calm
about it. Also, depending on how close you are to the source,
hearing damage is sure to
result.
However,
from
a
taller
building,
the
sound of New York is a lush hum
drifting
up and around you.
Fin.............................................
Currently in Spain,
we live on a pedestrian street, where only the occasional cargo
truck
and pizza delivery moped passes. What we mostly hear instead are
the sounds of shopping, greeting, and street musicians float
up
into our balconies. I don't miss the other sounds, but I am glad
I heard them.