Arizona: sing it's praises

[Jim]

There are a lot of things wrong with AZ, but it sure is a pretty nice place to be. Especially when compared to other places I have been or seen. Never mind the politics, the issues, the whatever, this state is easily in the top 4 or 5 states to live in, and maybe the best. Who's with me?

I've never even seen a mosquito, I don't have to deal with snow if I live at lower elevation (yet can still play in it), and there is so much variety here it's nearly impossible to beat. It's also pretty far south so the sun is more moderated between the seasons than say, every state north of us. We've got rock from granite to red sandstone, and people literally travel many, many thousands of miles to gawk at our holes. I know Colorado, Utah and parts of California have higher and more impressive mountains, but I've never had a view from them like Humphrey. New Mexico might have a river that runs through it, but we've got a man made canal. California has the ocean, but we've got Yuma. Uh, well, California is way more expensive.

[azbackpackr]

It's funny, I love to hate the Valley, but there are a lot of fun things there, for sure. And maybe one or two hikers! I wouldn't want to be poor there, though. It's better to be poor in Springerville. You don't have to live in an apt. ghetto here.

[Jim]

I find your daughters statements hard to believe. I know tons of people who are happy about the silence. Basically, you are the first person I have heard of who misses the horn, from a friend trying to sell a house near the last crossing on the east side to me, to lots of other people I talked to. Miss the horn? Thats real easy to do when you aren't impacted by it 200 miles away. It's a lot like saying you miss a tire fire in Ohio when you live in Mississippi. Frankly, foreign opinions on the matter are not welcome and do not matter. Sorry, but if you just have to have horn, you can go to every other town east of here that has it. Your argument about why it happened is way off base. If no one wanted it, it never would have happened. It was a huge issue here, and there was a fight for years by citizens and the city to get BNSF to silence the horns. Some people wanted to go so far as to have the line rerouted around town like they did in Williams. To the people who miss the horn, I say drive out to Winona and sit by a crossing. You'll feel nostalgic in no time.

As far as do gooders. I don't understand that at all. This is not a do gooder issue. It was a "hate those f-ing things" issue. I am tired of going deaf because I happened to be downtown when a train went through every 5 minutes. I hate them, and I'm glad they are silenced. As far as drunk idiots or suicidal college kids goes, as far as I know it isn't like the engineers are forbidden to blow the horn as a warning if they see someone or something on the tracks, they just are no longer required or permitted to blow them at every crossing as required by the NTSB or whoever regulates that. All the other sounds of the train are still there: the creaks, the rumbling engine, the locked sqwealing brakes on the poorly maintained cars, and the dinging of the crossing bell. BTW, if you can't hear the crossing Bell, what good is a horn going to do you anyway? If you can't hear, look both ways. If you can't see and hear, scream out for help. If you can't do that, should you really be out of the institute?

[azbackpackr]

Well, as you say, I don't live there. I just heard her and her friend talking about it, saying they had no idea so many people were against the horns. So, I guess there are people who are bothered by it and others who are not. Also, you know, these kids sometimes don't pay as much attention to the local news as they ought to, so they probably were not aware there had been a controversy and long fight about it.

Property owners always have issues with non-essential industrial/commercial noise. I lived under the airplanes for a long time in San Diego, in Pt Loma. The city spent millions in recent years to fix all the houses in my old neighborhood so they would have air conditioning, better windows, and better soundproofing, so now you can actually have a conversation in your own house while a plane is flying overhead. They didn't want to move the airport.

[Jim]

Noise pollution is the most impacting and overlooked form of pollution we have in modern society. I realize the NIMBY mentality, but also that we should try to cut it back when ever possible. Some things can't be moved when growth happens and comes up to an existing feature. Property values can be lower, and sometime things people don't want elsewhere get built in those cheaper less desirable place. I went to a College in NJ that was right under the flight paths for McGuire AFB. Every time a pack of planes would fly over to land you would have to stop the lesson to wait for the sound to stop. Same thing when working on base, but you expect it there. The real treat was working at the end of the runway when they were doing practice landings. You could see the pilots faces and hear your eardrums bursting.

Also, the big fight was in the last few years. I don't know when the agreement was reached, but they have been working on the crossing for a while. I don't know where you would have heard about it unless you read the paper religiously. There was a ceremony at the train station back in March when the last horn was blow. I only knew about it because of the paper and NPR.

[azbackpackr]

I saw it posted somewhere online on Facebook or a Phoenix news website, or maybe even on here, so then I looked it up on a Flagstaff news site. I'm thinkin' someone on here mentioned it one day, though.

The jets are worse, for sure, esp. military. I remember propeller planes, then prop jets, morphing into regular jets--it just kept getting worse every year. Louder planes + more flights. I lived in that house from when I was born in 1953 to 1977 and the city and airport kept growing. When I was 10 we camped out in the backyard all the time in summer. I tried it 5 years later and it was impossible.

[big_load]

There was a ceremony at the train station back in March when the last horn was blow.

I think it was just a few days before I was there. A few towns around here have gone through the same process for establishing a new quiet zone. It isn't easy.

[JimmyLyding]

I live in central Phoenix (not downtown), and the train whistle is a regular fixture here. Doesn't seem to reduce the # of Darwin Award winners, however.
I have gotten used to it, however.
I've also spent 7 years of my life in Tucson, and living near the U of A means that I got very used to planes flying into Davis-Monthan AFB. The A-10s aren't very loud because their twin engines aren't very powerful, and are mounted above the wings to protect them from ground-based weapons. The F-16s are also not very loud. However, when some foreign air force sent fighter-bombers (like German Tornadoes or Saudi F-15s) to Tucson for training the noise was very noticeable. Those twin-engine fast-movers are LOUD. I also enjoyed them practicing their targeting on vehicles travelling along I-10. The B-2 Spirit stealth bombers were very quiet for being such large planes. The sound of freedom!
I don't get why folks who live near Luke AFB west of Phoenix constantly complain about the noise. Don't they realize that they purchased a house near a large Air Force base?

As for jhodlof's assertion that <<Noise pollution is the most impacting and overlooked form of pollution we have in modern society>> I would argue that light pollution is worse. I don't enjoy the lack of noise from trains, planes, and automobiles nearly as much as being able to see the stars. I prefer being able to actually see the Milky Way over enjoying a quiet environment. However, I live in central Phoenix rather than Flagstaff so my enjoyment of what I miss is subjectively different.

[Jim]

According to something I read a while back that I can't remember and source, constant noise as we have in our modern cities and the lack of quite have psychological impacts.

[Jeffshadows]

However, when some foreign air force sent fighter-bombers (like German Tornadoes or Saudi F-15s) to Tucson for training the noise was very noticeable. Those twin-engine fast-movers are LOUD. I also enjoyed them practicing their targeting on vehicles travelling along I-10. The B-2 Spirit stealth bombers were very quiet for being such large planes. The sound of freedom!

Those are the RAF Tornadoes. They come around every year and they are loud suckers. It seems like everyone down here is complaining about the F-35 coming to town, now. I, personally, don't get it. Tucson is home to a large air base. If you hate the noise, move away.

[JimmyLyding]

I support a resolution on the part of the state of Arizona to re-start the F-22 Raptor program, and bring them to Luke just to cheese-off those fools who bought homes a few miles from a large AFB. Those suckers are very loud.
As for jdhodlof's last post, I am not surprised. I've lived in large cities my entire life, and the noises from everything from Sky Harbor to various freeways to the dishwasher (which I hear right now) definitely get to me when I first notice them, but become a non-factor (consciously) once I get used to them. Of course my roommate's habit of playing the "Rock Band" video game is something that I will never get used to.

[azbackpackr]

I live in a very quiet town where I can walk out my front door at night and sometimes hear no cars (esp. early Sunday morning) and can see the Milky Way. When we first moved here there was a guy who had one of those train horns on his pickup, and you could hear him honking it quite often from some distance away. So, after we had been here a couple of weeks, my son said to me one day, "Mom, where's the train? I keep hearing the train, but I don't know where it is!"

I personally hate smog and light pollution and noise! Maybe looking at smog bothers me more than anything else, though. And even though I know it is bad for you, my main issue with it is esthetic!

[Jeffshadows]

Make so mistake - smog is terrible for you. It has become progressively worse in Tucson over the last decade, as well. It used to be that I could see Babo and Wrightson as well as make out a lot of detail downtown on an average day in the Front Range of the Catalinas. The last few times I've bothered to look all I saw was a thick layer of haze with Wrightson somewhere behind in the fog...

[azbackpackr]

One reason I left...

[kevinweitzel75]

I moved to Tucson '87 with my parents from CO. Talk about a culture shock! In '90 we moved to Gilbert cause it was a little more like where we came from in CO. It's taken alittle bit of time, but I am a desert rat now. I still love to get up in the pines, but I do love the desert. The summers are a little rough but the rest of the year makes up for it. Even the summers with 115 temps, being out in the desert can be a magical experience. The sounds and smells can overload the brain. Maybe the heat has something to do with that now that I think about it. Still, the desert has pulled me into her grasp and she is not letting go.