Photo courtesy of Joanna Hamed
Large trucks are part of typical traffic along Avondale Road.

What do you do when you’re forced to sleep with a fan on turbo every night to drown out traffic noises?

Or when you’re forced to wake up at 5:15 a.m. because that’s when the weekday rush-hour traffic begins?

What do you do when you can’t sleep in your bedroom and are forced consider adding a bedroom at the back of your house?

Or when you’re unable to open the windows of your home because the drone of cars reverberates through your home?

What do you do when you can’t really enjoy walking in your neighborhood because the bouncing of trucks with their heavy loads over worn pavement detracts from the pleasure?

What do you do if you’re a pastor of a church and road noise disrupts services and other activities held during the week?

What if in the summer months, when you’d like to use your patio more, you don’t because road noise affects the tranquility of your backyard?

One family in The Crossings neighborhood off Avondale Road plans to sell their home because they can’t take the road noise anymore.

Other folks along a 2.5-mile stretch of Avondale Road from Northeast 134th Street to the Woodinville-Duvall Road have formed Citizens for a Quieter Avondale, and they are asking King County for help. They’re hoping when King County resurfaces or widens this busy section of Avondale, it will consider using a rubberized asphalt to create a quieter pavement. Rubberized asphalt consists of conventional asphalt mixed with a percentage ground up recycled tire rubber.

Members of Quieter Avondale have been measuring the sound in their yards. They are hoping King County will provide them with official sound measurements, but until then, this is what they’ve learned and set out in a letter to their King County Council representative, Kathy Lambert: “Noise levels in a typical backyard on Avondale are in the upper 60s to the upper 70s decibel range during normal traffic. They are even higher during rush hour or when large trucks rattle over bumps and dips, such as those on the bridge near the Bear Creek Road intersection. Besides the loud noise, windows actually rattle when large trucks hit the bumps.”

Whether the readings are accurate, whether they approach noise-abatement levels, they hope King County will tell them. They do believe the noise is impacting the quality of their lives.

The group attributes the noise to increased traffic along the road. Commuters from new developments in Duvall, Monroe and even the Maltby area use Avondale Road to get to Redmond, Bellevue, Seattle and points beyond. But Swang Rims, who works with King County’s Overlay Program, doesn’t think there’s been much of an increase in traffic along this part of Avondale. He cited an average daily traffic increase of only 1 percent compared to five years ago. The county is seeing increased travel on Novelty Hill Road and the southern part of Avondale, he said.

A King County traffic study on Avondale 300 feet north of Bear Creek Road might explain why road noise increases in the early morning. On March 28, 2007, traffic in Lane 1 went from 109 cars per hour to 736 cars per hour between 4 and 5 a.m.

Speeds, though posted at 40 mph, can vary. A King County speed classification report stated “85 percent speed was?48.2 (mph) in Lane 1 and 50.3 (mph) in Lane 3 on Monday, March 26, 2007.”

“When (State Route) 520 ends in Redmond, Avondale becomes 520,” said Joanna Hamed, a founding member of Citizens for a Quieter Avondale. “Basically, it’s just an extension of 520.”

That speeds along Avondale have crept beyond 40 mph is significant because, according to Shawn Gilbertson, acoustics special-studies manager for Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), “Tire noise becomes a factor above 40 mph. Below 40, engine noise, gear noise and exhaust noise (influence what people hear more so than tire noise).”

The group believes a combination of increased vehicles, more and bigger trucks, and higher speeds have added to the deterioration of this northern segment of Avondale. And road deterioration has added to the noise.

“They haven’t done an overlay on this stretch for a really, really long time,” said Megan Desantis, also a founding member of the Quieter Avondale group.

“We’ve lived here 20 years,” said Hamed, “and it hasn’t been resurfaced in that time.”

There has been maintenance along the road, but according to Hamed, “The maintenance has actually made it louder.”

Paul Moore, of King County’s Road Services Division, said a lot of the noise that people are hearing might be from tires crossing each individual joint in the cement road. This section of Avondale was constructed Portland cement, not asphalt. The road is laid in slabs; crossing the slabs creates the noise.

Rims said roads constructed with Portland cement are designed to last about 40 years. He said that the county has an objective method (a formula) to determine when to resurface a road. It has 550 miles of arterials, Avondale Road included, that it checks every two years for wear.

“We’re updating our information about the condition of the pavement (on Avondale), the number of accidents along it, and the history of the road for an April 22 meeting,” said Rims.

The Tuesday, April 22, meeting will be hosted by the Upper Bear Creek Unincorporated Area Council. It will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the Woodinville Water District, 17238 N.E. Woodinville-Duvall Road. Representatives from Citizens for a Quieter Avondale and King County will be present. Citizens who have questions or comments about Avondale are asked to submit them to QuieterAvondale@gmail.com before the April 22 meeting.

The group has been in contact with quieter pavement advocate Walter Scott, who’s somewhat of a hero to them. For six years, Scott led the effort to lobby WSDOT, Eastside city councils and state representatives for support in laying a test strip of rubberized asphalt along State Route 520.

“As a result,” said Scott, “the cities along S.R. 520 wrote Governor Gregoire asking for (rubberized asphalt), and the City of Bellevue petitioned WSDOT for (it).”

Last summer, Scott achieved his goal: WSDOT laid a half-mile test strip on both sides of 520 near the 78th Street Bridge going east. In 2006, the first test sections of quieter pavement were laid along southbound I-5 in Lynnwood. In 2009, crews will lay a third and final test section on I-405 through Bellevue.

Gilbertson said WSDOT would study each section of pavement through its useful life to see how it performs. It is comparing rubberized asphalt to another type of quieter pavement: asphalt modified with polymer, a synthetic fibrous filler other than rubber. The two quieter pavements are being compared to conventional asphalt.

According to Scott, who keeps current with national research projects on rubberized asphalt, the advantage of asphalt rubber is that as conventional asphalt ruts, it gets louder much faster than asphalt rubber, which is proven to be consistently 4 to 5 decibels quieter than conventional asphalt over the long term.

He said when compared to conventional asphalt, rubberized asphalt is porous. The air pockets dampen the tire slap, which accounts for 70 percent of freeway noise. Rubberized asphalt is much tougher, so it doesn’t rut. Its smooth surface doesn’t wear down to expose the noisy aggregate in the mix, he said.

“They have had a fair amount of success with rubberized asphalt in the Southwest,” said Gilbertson.

According to the Arizona Department of Transportation, rubber asphalt has been used successfully in Arizona for 20 years and has the benefit of being both smoother and quieter. They are finding it more durable and skid resistant than conventional asphalt.

Their Web site states, “During the 1990s, the City of Phoenix resurfaced more than 200 miles of streets with 450,000 tons of rubberized asphalt, which used about 1.1 million old tires. The city reported that rubberized asphalt placed on Dobbins Road in 1989 has performed without maintenance for 14 years and has an estimated life span of up to 18 years.”

Rubberized asphalt is also used in California, Florida, Texas, South Carolina and New Mexico, for example, and is also being tested in Michigan, New Jersey, Colorado and elsewhere.

“It’s too early to make any conclusions about the WSDOT tests,” said Gilbertson. “Initially, the pavement using polymer was 2 decibels quieter than new pavement using standard hot mix formula. The rubberized asphalt was 4 decibels quieter than the standard hot mix formula.”

He said WSDOT considered a 3-decibel reduction in noise “barely noticeable.” A 5-decibel reduction in noise was “readily noticeable.”

Apparently, the types of asphalt also have some tonal differences.

“Some pavement may be deeper toned and easier to tolerate than the whine of standard pavement,” said Gilbertson.

The question, of course, is just how much noise is eliminated with modified asphalts and how long the noise reduction lasts. WSDOT engineers are also studying how quieter pavements hold up against heavy rains, snow, ice and studded tires. Their findings will determine if either of these quieter pavements is a good choice for Washington highways.

King County did not say if it was willing to lay a test strip of rubberized asphalt on Avondale Road. Swang did say that he thought it was more expensive than conventional asphalt. He said all newly laid roads were quieter.

The Upper Bear Creek Unincorporated Area Council will host a meeting Tuesday, April 22, at 7:30 p.m. at the Woodinville Water District, 17238 N.E. Woodinville-Duvall Road to meet with county officials to explore ways to make Avondale Road safer and quieter.