The benefits of sound walls are many for the overall community. Those that live or work near busy highways, loud railways or other industrial noise sources seem to be happier when unwanted noise levels are reduced. A quieter environment reduces stress, hearing impairments, high blood pressure created by loud noise. There have been numerous studies done on the use of sound barriers their benefit to the overall quality of life for affected residents. The federal government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on sound walls nationwide to reduce noise pollution for its citizens. So sound walls play an important role in our country and provide a tangible benefit to us all.
There have been numerous cases where concrete sound walls, once installed, exacerbated the problem due to the unpredictable reflective noise. Research shows that reflective parallel sound walls (walls running parallel and across the roadway from each other) often send reflective noise far beyond the noise source and can actually increase the noise within the area of the traffic by 6 decibels or more.
Learn more about the benefits of Sound Walls in this article from Environmental Psychology.