Highway noise frustrates residents; TXDOT can’t help

Residents living in a South El Paso neighborhood say they are fed up with the constant noise coming from Border Highway.

Some houses on Laredo Avenue are just a stone’s throw away from the busy highway. Although the problem isn’t anything new, tenants and homeowners told ABC-7 the loud traffic keeps them up at night.

“We deal with the noise every day and night and we are just sick of it,” Lee Roy Arceiro said.

A resident whose backyard is cut off by the Border Highway says the noise rattles the pictures he has hanging inside his home.

Less than a mile down the highway stands a sound barrier wall. The wall was built by Texas Department of Transportation after the addition of toll roads on the highway. Residents living on Laredo Avenue are confused as to why the wall didn’t stretch to their neighborhood.

“When TxDOT builds new roadways or has a project part of our responsibility is to review the effects of the sound or if there is going to be increasing capacity there will be additional noise,” said TxDOT spokeswoman Jennifer Wright.

After evaluating the noise, TxDOT determined there would be an increase in existing noise levels and was obligated to ask the residents living inside the job limits if they would want the noise barrier wall built. In order for the wall to go up, more than 50 percent must vote in approval of the project.

Unfortunately for the residents living on Laredo Avenue, the toll road ends less than a half a mile away from their homes. TxDOT says that since the neighborhood falls outside the project limits, it is not obligated to build a wall.

The road “transitions into existing conditions,” TxDOT said.