Ingrid Buday still remembers how she felt when vehicle noise started ramping up outside her apartment in Toronto’s west end several years ago, depriving her of rest and making it impossible to work.
“I got angry. I got really angry because it was my sleep that was disturbed,” Buday recalls.
While she’s lived in her home near the Gardiner Expressway for 12 years, it was just in 2019 that she started hearing backfiring cars and noisy mufflers at all hours of the night, leaving her so tired that she was “dragging” herself to work in the morning.
“There was no way that I was going to be able to function and and go to work and get up and do the commute and everything else and so I was super angry,” Buday says.
She went out and bought a sound level meter and started collecting data, which showed her apartment was experiencing loud noise spikes overnight and that she wasn’t “nuts.”
She reached out online and soon discovered that there were many other people grappling with incessant noise.
“It turns out, there’s a lot of people that are annoyed, but we’ve been gaslit for decades about how noise impacts our health and (told) that we’re the problem,” says Buday, who started the group “No More Noise Toronto,” which lobbies for better noise policies.
It turns out that Buday and her group are indeed not alone.
A recent callout from CP24/ CTV News Toronto soliciting stories about noise in the GTA garnered dozens of responses.
From Leaf blowers to midnight garbage trucks to protests and endless construction noise, GTA residents are dealing with a barrage of assaultive noise keeping them up at night, keeping them from working and relaxing in the day, and generally keeping them annoyed.
“And that’s what I’ve heard from a lot of people, is they are just they’re angry because they are being impacted -- their sleep, their nervous system, they get headaches, they can’t focus, and then the long term effects,” Buday says.
Dozens of readers wrote in to describe, in detail, what the sometimes inescapable and grinding sounds of the city do to them.
Nick Iozzo lives in the Casa Loma area. He says that when he moved into his home, he never expected he’d be “living near a nightclub.”
But a few years ago, the castle started hosting more outdoor concerts and events.
After putting up with the noise for several years and getting nowhere with bylaw officers and city officials, Iozzo spent $40,000 to install soundproofing on most of the windows facing the venue.
“It’s cheaper than moving,” he reasons, adding, “We didn’t have much choice. They weren’t going to listen.”
He says he feels revenue at the city-owned venue was prioritized over the well-being of residents in the area, and says the same thing is happening at the new Rogers Stadium in Downsview Park, where some residents have said they are dealing with disruptively loud noise from the stadium.
Rochelle Rodney, 68, also thought she was moving into a quiet place when she moved to a low-rise rental building near the lake in Mimico in 2013. But just months after she moved in, she says, the building was bought by a real estate investment trust that installed an extremely noisy heat pump.
She says her health has been “destroyed” by the constant noise and vibration.
“Sometimes I feel that I am on the verge of a mental breakdown from ten years of sleep deprivation and constant stress and aggravation,” Rodney says.
She adds she’s gone so far as trying to sleep in her bathtub and closets to escape the noise, to no avail.
Moving is not an option, Rodney says, as market rates would be much more expensive than what she pays now.
City receives thousands of noise complaints
In a statement responding to a general question about how noise is being dealt with in Toronto, the city said it is “very active” in trying to address the problem.
“The City of Toronto continues to be very active in addressing residents’ noise concerns and has been continually improving its service for residents in this area,” city spokesperson Laura McQuillan wrote.
“In a city as large and vibrant as Toronto, certain levels of noise are reasonable and reflect life in a densely populated city. The Noise Bylaw balances the city’s vibrancy with the needs of residents and visitors and provides time restrictions and sound level limits for various types of noise.”
She said complaints about noise are assessed on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with their assessed priority, but acknowledged that not every complaint receives a response.
“Given the volume of noise complaints, the city may not respond to complaints about isolated events that are unlikely to recur or occur very infrequently,” McQuillan wrote. “Bylaw enforcement officers are also not emergency responders; they do not respond to noise complaints on an emergency basis and do not have the authority to immediately stop a noise event. In 2024, nearly 13,000 noise investigations were conducted.”
In 2024, 311 received 10,173 complaints about noise and 7,898 complaints about amplified sound.
So far this year, the city has fielded upward of 8,000 complaints about noise or amplified sound.
According to data available on the city’s website, 311 has so far this year received 4,709 noise complaints. That includes complaints about Stationary Motor Vehicle Noise (217); Animal Noise (1,026); Construction Noise (1,634); Unreasonable and Persistent Noise (1,079); and Stationary Source and Residential Air Conditioner Noise (481).
In addition, there were also 3,577 complaints about Amplified Sound or Instrument Sound.
Noise a problem across GTA
While those who live downtown are sometimes told that noise is to be expected in large cities, CP24 readers wrote in from all corners of the city and across the GTA, including Pickering, Vaughan, Scarborough, Etobicoke and other areas.
Jessica Cordoba, who lives in a ground-floor condo roughly 10 feet away from Highway 7 in Vaughan, says her life has been “hell” because of the noise she’s had to deal with from the street.
She and her fiancé moved into the condo near Pine Valley Drive and Highway 7 in September while they were expecting a baby.
“I had no idea so many people owned motorcycles until I lived here. It’s not like the people riding them are being courteous; they pass by with the loudest mufflers every 30 minutes, it seems like. Then the young people in their sports cars revving up just outside my balcony.”
Nearly six months since her daughter was born, she says the noise from the highway “has been a nightmare” for the family.
“Last night they were putting some black tar on the highway at 10 o’clock at night, and I had my five-month-old daughter sleeping in her nursery and this 18-wheeler decides to start honking while they’re paving. I wanted to yell out of my balcony,” Cordoba says.
She added it’s often impossible to put her daughter down in her crib because of the noise.
“It’s very, very, very hard, it just makes me upset. It’s just not making the Woodbridge vibe, like it just makes me want to run.”
She says she’s told her fiancé she wants to move by the fall, but she’s not sure they’ll be able to sell because of the condo market.
Councillor says efforts to combat noise ongoing
Coun. Chris Moise is keenly aware of the issue. As the councillor for Ward 13, he’s responsible for an area that includes much of the downtown core.
“It’s a problem in the city,” Moise says. “When I’m out and about, you know, people honking their horns, they’re very impatient sitting behind the wheel of the cars. There’s souped up cars on the road and there’s a lot of construction in the city as well. In most cases, it’s needed to keep our infrastructure running. So, it’s something that we continue to manage.”
He says that noise monitoring is in place around large public events such as festivals and concerts, and the city is using available technologies to mitigate noise where it can.
Still, there’s room for improvement.
“I’ve been working with MLS (Municipal Licensing & Standards) to reduce amplified noises in the core.
One example, Moise says, is when it comes to people using megaphones and mics in the area of Yonge and Dundas streets.
“That has been a common complaint, because there are condos in that area and some people tell me that they work from home and they cannot work from home because of all the noise. And at night, when they try to sleep, they can’t sleep,” Moise says. “And when they approach these people, they either ignore them or they’re verbally abusive.”
Moise says MLS has conducted blitzes, taking away equipment and ticketing people. Signage has also been added letting people know that they are not allowed to use amplified sound.
‘Vibrant doesn’t need to equal loud’
But Buday says the city could be doing much more.
“There’s tons of solutions. The technology has changed. It’s improved,” she says. “There’s automated noise cameras, there’s all kinds of things. So we really want to both support the economy and Toronto.
She adds that while Toronto may be working toward shedding its “Toronto the good” moniker (read: boring), “vibrant doesn’t need to equal loud.”
“There’s limiters that can be used, where you remove the base component (from sound systems) after 11 o’clock at night so, you know, people aren’t being vibrated out of their beds.”
With more thought and planning, Buday says, new buildings could incorporate better soundproofing, monitoring could be installed to measure noise around the city to ensure problems are identified and dealt with and automated tickets could also be handed out for excessively loud vehicles.
Buday, who regularly appears at city hall to give deputations on noise, says city officials tell her that technologies are not ready yet, but she points out that cities like New York have already deployed them.
She adds that noise is not just a nuisance; it’s a health and equity issue and more could be done if there was a willingness to try and treat it as a serious problem with creative solutions.
But some construction projects around the city continue to enjoy all-night noise exemptions, as do some entertainment venues.
“We’ve prioritized the corporate agenda over public health, and people are tired, they’re grumpy, they’re bitchy, and talk about people being stressed in public environments – all of that is just adding to it, because we all know how bad we feel when we don’t have a good night’s sleep, or we don’t get to relax, and that’s what’s happening to some people on a chronic, continual basis.”
