I can empathize with nearby residents inconvenienced by light rail, and I sure hope Sound Transit does its best to prevent or abate those unexpected screeching noises on the run through Tukwila. But… I have trouble feeling sympathy for homeowners complaining about noisy trains “knocking down their property values” when the homeowners knew full well that they were buying next door to busy train tracks:
David and Laurie Shumate, who moved into their remodeled 1920s home two years ago, take issue with Sound Transit’s November noise readings… “We don’t want to move, but … ” David Shumate said, sighing deeply before finishing, “I don’t know.”
The woman who’s lived in her house for 60 years… she’s got a reason to complain. But the Shumates, not so much. It’s like folks who buy houses near airports, because they’re such a good value, complaining about noise from airplanes flying low overhead.
Sound Transit is in the midst of conducting further tests, and if they determine there is a problem they will try various noise abatement methods, including soundproofing affected homes. But…
“That doesn’t help when we’re outside,” Laurie Shumate said. The Shumates spend their spare time converting what they disparagingly call the previous owner’s “English garden” into a lush yard full of plants native to the Duwamish River area.
Again… they bought a house across the street from elevated train tracks, and they expect to enjoy their lush garden in piece and quiet? That’s just bad planning.
I, also, was dismayed at the amount of money spent on noise abatement walls along I-405 and I-5, where in some cases the neighboring homes were constructed AFTER the freeway was completed. I’m amazed even further that some large homes alongside I-405 are still being constructed right up to the noise abatement walls, with what appears to be bedrooms facing the interstate. Will those new owners soon be demanding improvements to the noise abatement walls?
Hey, if people are willing to put up with some noise in exchange for a lower housing price, than that’s their business. But if they then want to buy cheap and then have the taxpayers finance some quick appreciation in their property value, that’s another matter altogether.
Goldy, I’ve told you many times to GET UP, GO OUTSIDE, AND DO SOME OF YOUR OWN ORIGINAL STORIES, WITH IN-PERSON INTERVIEWS! I have even told you do one on this very subject: The Sound Transit Link light rail line. I told you to go out and interview the line’s neighbors, area businesses, and future riders. Did you do that? No. You are still there, mooching off of real journalists at the Seattle Times.
WHY THE HELL DON’T YOU GET OFF YOUR GOD-DAMNED LAZY ASS AND GO OUT AND WRITE A STORY FROM SCRATCH? THIS COULD HAVE BEEN YOUR STORY, FROM START TO END. BUT NO, YOU, ONCE AGAIN, ARE JUST COMMENTING ON SOMETHING YOU’VE READ IN A NEWSPAPER.
Goldy, listen to me. I know you see me as a sort of mentor. So trust me when I say I know more about journalism than you. I even know more about blogging than you. And, I believe I even know more about Horses Ass than you. If you really want to take this blog to the next level, you will rely less on the work others, and will start writing more your own original stories.
Why don’t you do that anymore? Why have you let HA sink to this level, where all you do now is surf the web until you see something you want to lay snark over?
Seriously, I want to see you write an original story from start to finish, with in-person interviews and everything. Will you accept my challenge? Will you write one mooch-free post this week?
Troll, sounds cool! What’s your name (byline) in the paper, I don’t think I caught it. I don’t want to miss your “journalism” expertise. I assume you have a regional/national blog with all original reporting like you said? What was that, sounds like it might be interesting.
Yeah, people buying cheap houses in noise impact areas and then complaining about noise is kind of like a speculator who bought General Motors stock yesterday complaining because his shares haven’t doubled yet.
However, I don’t think Sound Transit can realistically expect anyone to live with this noise, and if they don’t fix it themselves, class-action lawyers will force them to fix it.
It sounds like the pitch of the noise was a lot higher than anyone had been forecasting. So the people may have bought expecting some noise, just not as much irritation as they seem to be experiencing.
It also sounds like there are some workarounds for the trains themselves.
How Sound Transit handles this will play a big role in what type of cooperation they do or don’t get as they put the line through other populated areas.
What did the EIS say about noise levels? Was any type of noise forecast even in the EIS?
“Class action lawyers” aren’t going to fix it. There’s no practicable way to determine loss of property value due to noise, and as is pointed out by a number of people, if you know about the possible problem before you buy the house, then it’s your problem. Class action lawsuits have to be certified before they can go forward and I can’t see a judge deciding that a whole class of people was possibly legally injured by the noise of a train, or that their injuries were similar enough to consider them a class.
Well I understand that a certain house in Wasilla, Alaska is going on the market soon, move assholes.
@7 “There’s no practicable way to determine loss of property value due to noise”
So? This shows how little you know about law. Trust me, if there’s a compensable harm, the lawyers will figure out how to quantify it in monetary terms. In fact, it’s remarkably easy: It’s worth whatever a jury decides. And the caselaw is pretty clear that noise can be actionable. It falls under nuisance law.
Apart from the nuisance itself, Sound Transit could be on the hook if it made representations about projected noise levels, and the actual noise exceeds those levels, because then you’ve got an element of misrepresentation in the equation.
Wait, wasn’t two years ago around the start of the real estate bubble deflation as well?
How about the other side?
Lota folks will make gazilions of dollars .. Esp in increased real estate values!
Is there a LID tax on investers down there?
‘….screeching noises….’
Ironic coming from someone with a screechy pre-pubescent voice like yours Goldy. Thanks for the laugh! :)
Does anyone here remember me telling Goldy a few weeks ago to go out and interview people IN PERSON along the Link line, get their opinions, and then write a story about it?
Um, don’t those people live in a quasi-industrial zone? Like, near a bunch of freeways and industrial waterways?
Troll has a weird obsession today…
Light Rail opponents are always split down the middle: half whine that their values will go down because of things like noise and crime; the other half claim that gentrification and increased property values will drive them out of the neighborhood. The only thing either side can agree on: they don’t like trains.
@15
I just want to be acknowledged and thanked.
Hmmm. There goes Troll barking out orders (again) @ 2…
Such is the way of the right wing.
re 2: Goldy: Troll has repeatedly ‘told’ you to do interviews.
What’s the problem?
They were already between the Duwamish, freight railroad tracks, the freeway, Southcenter, SeaTac Airport, and Boeing Field. Their value was going to drop drastically after the bubble popped no matter what. Love how they use the county average of 15% drop in price to whine about their 25% drop in Tukwila. Anybody in Tukwila should be lucky it only dropped 25%. Its hardly light rail’s fault they bought in one of the cruddiest area of the county at the peak price.
@20
Fool!
If you can find bargain prperty down there
BUY BUY BUY!!!!!!!!!
That area is golden because of lt rail!
The exact same argument goes for all those sound barriers going up on I-5. Why the hell are those being put in? We are paying to add value to the homes that people have aready paid fair market value for which INCLUDES freeway noise.
re 22: It’s a secret liberal plan to increase the value of all the houses and then TAX them on the incresed value!!
@18 YLB:
Ah, are you mad you’re told when to be at the DSHS office? Thats part of the handout and gov’t cheese process dumbass. Get used to it, or become employed, pay your taxes, and work for a living like the rest of us.
(waves hand in dismissal)
(YLB stammers, tries to fire back a crafty comeback to justify his meaningless existence….)
I think #23’s on to something…
We had similar complaints down my way with the building of the second narrows bridge. The people complaining already lived right next to a freaking freeway and we’ve all known there would eventually be a second bridge. Their complaints went pretty much no where.
Things change over time. It is not governments job to protect you from change.
Anybody who lives in the city, and complains about any noise is a quack. They’re all stinky, irritating, noisy shit holes.
A little advice; move to the country. Eat a lot a peaches.
24 – heh. You’re so feckless.. and ignored..
By the way, thanks for being a consistent asswipe per my advice way back when.
It’s worked out wonderfully for the people-first agenda – you’re a perfect example of what people don’t want and don’t want to be like.
@28
I hear ya.
@29 YLB:
Apparently not if you read that. And sticks and stones…but I am employed, pay taxes, and am not a leech on society as you are. Where’s your defense there or your justification for being worthless? We’re waiting ….c’mon….YLB, you there?
@14 No.
@24 And workers are told when to be at work. They’re told when to take breaks. They’re told what to do. They’re told what they’ll be paid. They’re told when they can take time off. What’s your point?
If you don’t like being told what to do, then don’t work.
@26 That’s not the same thing as steel wheels skreeking on steel rails every 10 minutes, day and night, only 140 feet away.
@31 “I … am not a leech on society …”
Oh? People who vote Republicans into office aren’t leeches on society?
I beg to differ with you on that. If people like you didn’t vote Republicans into office, there wouldn’t be no-bid contracts or cronies shoveling money from pickup trucks into contractors’ duffel bags.
yehyehyeh
Of course YLB is silent about my post at 31.
And Rodent, I don’t bother to read your posts anymore, so don’t bother with your senile mouth-diarrhea. You’re really losing it old timer. I truly feel sorry for you. Good luck! And again, a website that may be useful to you:
http://www.aetv.com/obsessed/
why the need to pigeonhole them as nimbys? when goldy complains HE didn’t realize the traffic impacts in rainier valley despite being very well informed, so it’s okay for him to compalin about that, then he says it’s not okay for other people to complain about something else?
they may or may not have valid complaints in the court of public opinion, or the court of law, but what’s not fair is to slam them without checking it out and telling us if the level of noise is even what ST portrayed, or as the article states, much worse.
35 You truly are a fucking idiot.