How much do you hate living on a busy street? (DC)

[Anonymous]

Yeah, sounds like a personal decision. I live on Mass Ave and I (and my baby!) sleep great. I like street noise. How quiet do you need it to sleep? That's really the question.

[Anonymous]

Also think about traffic flow and what times you're more likely to have street noise. For example if you are going to live on Georgia Ave in NW DC, the southbound side will be busier in the morning with rush hour traffic. Good luck sleeping past 7 or so on a weekday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate it, but I'm in a historic district so I'm stuck with crappy 100 year old windows which provide no sound insulation. It's also a big pedestrian throughway so there's zero privacy in the yard. It's just not relaxing gardening with the street noise and random people commenting on my plants. I also worry about the effect of the background noise on my kids. I would not live on a busy street again but we're probably stuck here til the kids are in college.

Ah, “walkability.”

[Anonymous]

Everyone's tolerance is different. I've lived on 16th St. NW and K St. NE and been totally fine with it in both cases because of the setbacks. On the other hand, I'd probably hate living on, say, Florida Ave. Or Rhode Island Ave., because the setbacks are less and the traffic is at higher speed.

Keep in mind that many streets that are very busy during rush hour are actually pretty quiet at other times. If you only enjoy your front yard on Sunday afternoons, it doesn't matter much what it's like on Monday mornings.

Also, keep in mind that the kind of noise that bothers you may not be all that well correlated to traffic. A side street near bars that noisy drunks walk through will probably be more disruptive than many commuter routes, even though the traffic is much higher on the latter street.

[Anonymous]

I do wish I lived on a quieter street but it's really not bad. The bus picks up at the end of our block. It's actually convenient. It goes downtown and we took it on weekends back when we could go to museums, festivals and the movies. I've gotten used to the street noise. We bought a tower fan that we put on at night for white noise. I was terrified of my kid walking out into the street when I wasn't looking so we put up a nice iron fence around the front yard. We lost out on 3 houses before this one that were on quieter streets so I'm just glad we found a place we like, in budget, and met most of our specifications.

[Anonymous]

We live on a semi-busy street in the city. There's often some noise going on in our house, but we did replace the windows which significantly reduced the noise. Most of our neighbors sit out on their porch on nice days and the traffic is not overwhelming. We don't have any issues sleeping at night, but everyone sleeps with a white noise machine (even those of us with bedrooms on the quiet side of the house). One positive of living on busier streets is that the foot traffic cuts down on opportunity crime.

[Anonymous]

There is usually less community/neighborhood feel on busy streets. Keep that in mind

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live on a semi-busy street in the city. There's often some noise going on in our house, but we did replace the windows which significantly reduced the noise. Most of our neighbors sit out on their porch on nice days and the traffic is not overwhelming. We don't have any issues sleeping at night, but everyone sleeps with a white noise machine (even those of us with bedrooms on the quiet side of the house). One positive of living on busier streets is that the foot traffic cuts down on opportunity crime.

pp here and to clarify the frequent noise inside is from the family NOT traffic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live on a semi-busy street in the city. There's often some noise going on in our house, but we did replace the windows which significantly reduced the noise. Most of our neighbors sit out on their porch on nice days and the traffic is not overwhelming. We don't have any issues sleeping at night, but everyone sleeps with a white noise machine (even those of us with bedrooms on the quiet side of the house). One positive of living on busier streets is that the foot traffic cuts down on opportunity crime.

Huh. I always guessed the opposite - for instance, someone could quickly up and take your package and keep walking? Or are you saying with everyone out and about, people are less likely to do this. . . ?

[Anonymous]

Is it near a stoplight? I lived in the suburbs in a townhouse by a light at a busy intersection. There were parking spaces, tall bushes and a sidewalk between us and the stoplight. It was so loud with all the cars waiting at the light. Large Trucks rumbling to a stop then having to gear up to go. People who had loud music and super deep bass. All emergency vehicles that had to slow down and try to get past all the people at the night.
It was horrible. And the worst place was the Master Bedroom.

And what bothered me the most wasn’t the noise, it was the low rumbling I could feel in my solar plexus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live on a semi-busy street in the city. There's often some noise going on in our house, but we did replace the windows which significantly reduced the noise. Most of our neighbors sit out on their porch on nice days and the traffic is not overwhelming. We don't have any issues sleeping at night, but everyone sleeps with a white noise machine (even those of us with bedrooms on the quiet side of the house). One positive of living on busier streets is that the foot traffic cuts down on opportunity crime.

Huh. I always guessed the opposite - for instance, someone could quickly up and take your package and keep walking? Or are you saying with everyone out and about, people are less likely to do this. . . ?

IME yes, also things like car break-ins happen more frequently on the quieter streets. There are many more potential witnesses on the busier streets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live on a semi-busy street in the city. There's often some noise going on in our house, but we did replace the windows which significantly reduced the noise. Most of our neighbors sit out on their porch on nice days and the traffic is not overwhelming. We don't have any issues sleeping at night, but everyone sleeps with a white noise machine (even those of us with bedrooms on the quiet side of the house). One positive of living on busier streets is that the foot traffic cuts down on opportunity crime.

Huh. I always guessed the opposite - for instance, someone could quickly up and take your package and keep walking? Or are you saying with everyone out and about, people are less likely to do this. . . ?

IME yes, also things like car break-ins happen more frequently on the quieter streets. There are many more potential witnesses on the busier streets.

I am on a semi-busy street and package theft and break ins are rarer than I would have thought. Someone is always watching.

[Anonymous]

What street, op?

[Anonymous]

You will spend a lot of time dusting, eve when you keep the windows and doora closed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live on a semi-busy street in the city. There's often some noise going on in our house, but we did replace the windows which significantly reduced the noise. Most of our neighbors sit out on their porch on nice days and the traffic is not overwhelming. We don't have any issues sleeping at night, but everyone sleeps with a white noise machine (even those of us with bedrooms on the quiet side of the house). One positive of living on busier streets is that the foot traffic cuts down on opportunity crime.

Huh. I always guessed the opposite - for instance, someone could quickly up and take your package and keep walking? Or are you saying with everyone out and about, people are less likely to do this. . . ?

IME yes, also things like car break-ins happen more frequently on the quieter streets. There are many more potential witnesses on the busier streets.

Yes- I’ve lived on a very busy street for the past ten years. Never once had a package stolen from my front porch.

To answer the larger question, I don’t LOVE living on a busy street, but it works out fine for my family. I’m paranoid about pedestrian accidents when I’m walking with my family and our kids learned at a very young age to cross streets very carefully. We invested in new windows and it made a huge difference- I don’t notice street noise with the windows closed. We do get a lot of dust on the outside of our house and I wash the windows monthly (from the inside).

We are on an ambulance route (Missouri Ave close to Georgia). It’s not noticeable to me anymore and my kids sleep great through noise. But family visiting have a hard time- we need to lend them the white noise machine and had to put blackout curtains since the streetlights are always on.