Noise Barriers Print E-mail

The U.S. Department of Transportation – Federal Highway Administration “Keeping the Noise Down” February 2001 brochure includes information about Highway Traffic Noise Barriers. Some excerpts are included. For more information please visit the Federal Highway Administration website at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/keepdown.htm.

The Project has worked with the local communities to design sound walls that work for their community. There will, therefore, be a variety of walls on the Project. There will be transparent barriers, barriers with special treatments on them, including anti-graffiti treatments.

Paraglass Soundstop© acrylic sheet products have been used in transparent noise barriers around the world for almost 20 years. Paraglass Soundstop© GS CC acrylic sheet incorporates polyamide filaments and can be run vertically or horizontally. In the event of impact by a car or truck, the imbedded filaments will hold the broken sheet. Black or clear threads will be placed in the Project’s soundwall.
Advantages of using Paraglass Soundstop© noise barrier:

  • highly transparent
  • extremely resistant to weathering and aging
  • easy to install
  • aesthetically appealing
  • highly resistant to windload stress.

There are two examples of the sound wall in the Project’s construction staging area at 2901 Eisenhower Avenue. The wall will extend from the Washington street deck to approximately 1300 feet to the east of the abutment at Royal Street.

Rendering of the new bridge with Paraglass noise walls
This rendering shows what it would look like to the driver on the Beltway

The new sound wall north of the Beltway in the Church Street vicinity was actually voted on by the community some time ago.

In Maryland in the MD 210/I-95 interchange on the Beltway outer loop near the Forest Heights Baptist Church and on the Beltway inner loop at the Flintstone Elementary school continuing along the outer ramp to MD 210.

In Virginia, there will also be sound walls on the Beltway outer loop at Telegraph Road/I-95 interchange off-ramp, along the new ramp bridges between Telegraph Road and US Route 1, around the Hunting Terrace apartments to Washington Street and along the Beltway by the Hunting Towers to Royal Street.

In Virginia, in addition to the transparent noise wall for a portion of the bridge, there will be three sound walls in the Church Street vicinity, one of which will extend along northbound US Route 1. There will be a parallel wall along southbound US Route 1 in the Lee recreation Center from approximately Franklin Street and wraps around the ramp to the Beltway at US Route 1.