KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – The City of Knoxville is adding noise cameras to the downtown area with the goal to stop noisy cars on Gay Street.
“It’s annoying, it’s distracting, especially when you’re waking up and when you’re putting kids to bed,” Blaine Owens, a Knoxville resident, said.
Carter Hall, Knoxville’s deputy director for the Center for Service Innovation, said they have received numerous complaints over the years and needed a way to limit these issues.
“It’s a tough issue to figure out how to really enforce. It’s a little more complicated than just having an officer standing on a corner with a decibel reader, so finding an innovative way to try to enforce the laws that we have on the books was something that we were excited about,” Hall said.
Back in 2022, Knoxville went through a pilot program with noise cameras. Through this trial, they found that car noise was a big problem in Downtown Knoxville.
“What we found with the data was, not only did we have legitimate violations happening regularly, the numbers were enough that we thought it was appropriate to move forward on a solution for residents,” said Hall.
The cameras can pick up on noise that breaks the city ordinance, record that vehicle and then issue a ticket. City officials said they are looking for illegally modified cars that are producing that excess noise.
“The camera system has an algorithm driven with it that will actually identify specific noise characteristics and will say ‘this is actually the kind of sound pattern that is the kind of thing we’re looking for’, and it will pick up, let’s say, fire trucks, street sweepers,” Hall said. “Those have a very specific sound characteristic, and it will say ‘hey, that’s actually not the kind of violation that we’re looking for’, so we can get really narrow and specific with it.”
Owens said this has been an annoying situation that has caused them headaches.
“Specifically at night, a lot of motorcycles and loud cars trying to like show off in an area that’s heavy with pedestrians,” Owens said.
The city is hoping these cameras can act as deterrents for these types of cars downtown.
“I think it’s important. If it keeps people away from these big downtown urban canyons where that sound will really reverberate, then that’s great,” Hall said.
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