Possible changes to Calgary noise bylaw could see new fines for offensive vehicle noise

Calgary’s noise bylaw is shifting gears, and soon it could be easier for bylaw officers to give drivers tickets for noisy vehicles.

A unanimous decision at Thursday’s Community Development Committee means council will vote to include new fines for “objectionable noise” and give traffic officers more discretion to give tickets.

“If I may just set some reasonable expectations — noise enforcement is always difficult. It’s this nebulous thing — how windy it is can influence whether or not you can take the sound metre out and conduct a test on a vehicle. Ambient noise levels in busy areas, you may not be able to apply this bylaw,” explained chief bylaw officer Ryan Pleckaitis.”The passing of a new bylaw is one step of many. It’s getting our peace officers on the ground, doing this kind of work.”

Revving your engine, blasting music, or squealing tires could soon come with a price tag.

Making noise purposefully over 96 decibels, or anything about 92 decibels measured by a sound metre at a distance of 50 centimetres from the exhaust when the vehicle is idling could result in tickets over $270. There could also be a new fine of $300 for drivers refusing to comply with direction from a bylaw officer during noise testing.

“This is really just giving us another opportunity, another avenue to deal with vehicles that are creating noise that’s impacting communities,” said Pleckaitis. “Not a silver bullet, but it’s just another tool for officer’s in their toolkit to address an issue that’s important to Calgarians.”

Coun. Gian Carlo Carra says there have been attempts to introduce noise bylaw amendments many times, but they have been unsuccessful.

“We tried to do this years ago, a couple times. It was always heartbreaking to see that we couldn’t quite get the technology and the law to line up,” he said. “Fingers crossed this time, this will be a major quality of life enhancer if it works.”

Coun. Courtney Walcott says this latest move is in an important step.

“Historically we didn’t have the landscape, but we always had the problem. The problem kind of sat with us but we didn’t have the legal landscape to deal with it,” he said. “Now, we finally do and this is just one final step to actually getting those teams on the ground.”

Coun. Terry Wong says there is an important reason for moving ahead with the changes.

“This helps us bring quality of life [up]. This isn’t purely about enforcing those noisy motorcycles or race cars or bad behaviour, but it’s really about improving quality of life,” he said.

These changes still need to be approved at council. If that happens, a public education campaign is expected to follow, including warnings, before tickets could possibly be given out.