Fighting PATH Ventilation Facility Noise in Downtown Jersey City

The issue:
For almost 5 years (since spring of 2008) the residents of Metropolis Towers and the nearby buildings have been tortured nightly, for hours and hours, by a very loud whiny noise coming from the PATH Train ventilation facility located on the corner of Columbus Drive and Warren Street. The noise is extremely disturbing for its persistence, level and pitch. It has changed patterns throughout the years but currently appears every Tuesday to Saturday morning from 1am to 5am. It is so loud that once it starts you can't keep the windows open, and it's audible even through closed windows. Not to be able to keep the windows open is a real problem for an old high-rise with ours (Metropolis Towers) which doesn't have air-conditioning (only seasonal central heating or cooling system) and the only way to get fresh air in the rooms is to have the windows open.

What is being done:
After many phone calls to our coop management office (2008/2009), the PATH (2009, 2010), the Mayor's Action Bureau(2010), and the Hudson Regional Health Commission (2010, 2011),  finally in April 2011 I had an inspector from Hudson Regional Health Commission come in the middle of the night to measure the noise from our bedroom. It measured about 57DB, which is above the 50DB limit for a continuous night time noise. The inspector sent a letter to the PATH train that they have to remediate the problem or they will be fined. They had a month to respond to the letter and present a plan of action. After many unreturned calls by the PATH, 4 months later in Aug 2011, they sent a letter stating that they would resolve the issue by January 2012. I patiently and hopefully waited until mid January 2012 and since the noise continued, I  called both the inspector and the PATH representative. Yet another series of (unreturned) calls, and around the end of February I was told that they have a new date to start the repairs of the ventilation facility fans - May 19  - and I was assured that a formal letter to the Hudson Regional Health Commission will follow. Since then I've been following with the inspector every other week and such letter has not been sent.

Throughout the process the people from the PATH have been extremely unresponsive. They have been given multiple extensions to comply and yet they don't even bother to respond. If they once again fail to start repairs in mid May as they had promised, we should insist that they are handed to the law enforcement. In order to do that the inspector said we need to get as many complains as possible. If you are affected, please call Hudson Regional Health Commission and file a complaint.

Where to call to file a complaint:

Hudson Regional Health Commission 
(201) 223-1133
Inspector Richards is on the case.


***5/24/2012
As of today, May 24, no repairs have started and there is no letter form the PATH committing to a time frame. Last week I spoke with the PATH contact person who promised to have some answer in the following 10 days. Today (10 days later), there was still no answer - he told me to call in another week...

***6/6/2012
We have a date now but the beginning of the work has been postponed again - now the the PATH representative specified Sep 1 at the date they expect to start working on the fans. They don't want to commit to this date in writing though. Also he doesn't expect to eliminate the noise completely, just "mitigate". He said they are going to work on the blades and put silencers.

***4/29/2014 *** LATEST UPDATE ***
It's been almost 2 years since the last update but it doesn't mean the issue has been resolved nor that I had given up the fight.

After my last post in June 2012,  we were heroically enduring the noise almost every night waiting for the promised day of silence in September. Of course, no repairs started in September 2012 but hurricane Sandy happened in October, the PATH facility was inundated, and thus got quiet for a while (the low-frequency noise that we were hearing for another 2 months after Sandy was coming from the faulty generator servicing the white building across the street at Evertrust Plaza).

So the noise disappeared temporarily after Sandy in Oct 2013 and started creeping back in early 2013. During Feb, March and April 2013 appeared a few times on weekends, running continuously for the entire weekends (48+ hours each time) and on one occasion it even run continuously for 4 consecutive days. That's when I called the inspector again. He spoke with Mike Marino (who had been at this time recently promoted to assistant director/general superintendent of the PATH). Verbally Mike Marino had promised to issue a memorandum for the fan not to be used until the planned repairs finished. In fact, no repairs started, nor did the noise stopped. In the only meeting that inspector Richards had had with him, Mike Marino had indicated that this ventilation facility had not been intended for regular use, but only for emergencies. Which clearly is not the case.

The noise really picked up in mid July 2013 , with more than 40 occurrences until mid Nov, then tapered down again until March 2014, when it picked up again with 2-3 occurrences a week. I estimated that the total number of nights and days when the noise tortured us since it's appearance in 2008 should be around 600-700! Each nightly occurrence lasts 4-5 hours, and the daily ones were usually for the entire weekends. It is horrendous.

Since the day I first contacted Hudson Regional Health Commission in 2010 (2 years after the noise started) to the present day, the PATH was able to successfully traumatize our lives almost daily without any repercussions. They were able for 4 years to gain time and do nothing while offering inconsistent verbal explanations or promises.The PATH won't do anything unless they are pressured to do so. They don't care about the human beings who are being affected. For 2 years prior to July 2012 I had been constantly told that they were working on repairs on the Newport fan and once they finish they would stop using the Columbus Drive one (referred to as Railroad Avenue Fan Shaft), only to find out that during the first 1.5 years (of this 2-year pediod) they hadn't even started the repairs, and that the repair were supposed to last just a month. And in the end it didn't even matter because they didn't stop using the Railroad Avenue fan. Now for the past 2 years they are promising repairs to the Columbus Drive fan. My understanding is that now they are trying to find a  solution that will allow them to decrease the noise just enough to avoid being in violation. The only solution that I see is for them to stop using this fan and use it only for emergencies.

As of July 2013 in my discussions with the inspector I started to insist to move to the next step - law enforcement. He said that he had to take new noise readings, so again after many calls and many months he came on Oct 29 2013 to take readings and I was able to get a hold of the results in March 2014. Even that the noise level was very high (60-65 DB), it turned out that the readings are invalid because the wind speed of 14 mph had been above the allowed 12 mph. Since then I've been trying to  get the inspector to come again and take new readings. 

We need each one of you to help by calling Hudson Regional Health Commission at (201) 223-1133 and filing a complaint. If you are a resident of Metropolis Towers, please call the management office and complain as well - ask them to file a complain. This is important, but not as important as calling Hudson Regional Health commission directly.

If you are affected by the noise as well please get in touch with me at fightPATHnoise@gmail.com.

***5/01/2014 *** LATEST UPDATE 2 ***

Yesterday I received a copy of the letter from the PATH to Hudson Regional Health Commission, stating that their investigation into the fan noise complaint has completed (3.5 years after it was originally reported!) and that they will be specifying and procuring new low noise silencer packages.  No time frame has been specified, just that "it will take time". According to the letter the PATH "has agreed to bring the noise level down to 50 db" (50 db is the nightly enforceable limit). This is a bad news to us because obviously their goal is to continue using the fan but make it a non-violation. The noise will be almost as annoying as it is now, but it will be more difficult to legaly fight it. It doesn't look like the PATH cares about the residents, they just want to do the minimum to avoid formal action. 

It's been 6 years after the noise started, 3.5 years after it was originally reported, 3 years after the initial noise readings and the ensuing letter according to which they had to provide a plan for remediation within 30 days!  I wouldn't be surprised if the investigation actually took less than a month...

As for the "agreement", I would not settle with this and I would insist that the fan is used only for emergencies (they have to define what an emergency is, but it should not be something that happens every week, let alone 5 times a week). They should stop using it on a regular basis the same way as it was not used prior to 2008.