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New sound walls coming to some Troy neighborhoods along I-75, but others miss out

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Funding was recently approved for two new sound walls along I-75, which is welcome news for people who say the noise from the highway is too much.

The sound walls along the highway are meant to reduce highway noise, but some people aren't happy.

"How excited are you that this area is getting a sound wall?" I asked Graham Bush, who lives near Firefighters Park.

"The whole community here, three or four subdivisions are absolutely overjoyed," he said.

The $10 million is being set aside for the sound walls along the northbound lanes of I-75 – one along Wattles and Long Lake, with the other along Crooks and Coolidge where Bush lives.

However, Verba Edwards, who lives in the Beach Forest Subdivision, has been fighting to get a noise wall where he lives.

"No one wants to live in a home where every day you hear this noise," he said. "To live here for all these years and hear this noise, you can hear it now, and no one says they can help us, I don't understand it and I won't accept it."

According to the Michigan Department of Transportation study from this year, there are not enough homes impacted by the noise to financially invest in building a wall in some of the areas.

"There are four other segments of sound walls that should be built in the City of Troy, I believe, because the sound levels warrant them," Troy Mayor Ethan Baker said. "Unfortunately, as of right now, the federal rules prohibit sound walls from being built there because there is not enough density affected by the sound."

Baker said he's working with lawmakers to get the laws changed and hopefully get more walls built.

"My understanding is that the federal rule related to sound wall qualification hasn't been adjusted since 1997, so over 25 years ago, and there have been a lot of changes since there," he said.

However, any type of change could take time.

We did reach out to MDOT, and they say it's too early to say when construction will start on the two newly-approved sound walls.