AVE is a noisy neighbour in Alicante

ALICANTE city residents living near the station find the high speed AVE hard to tolerate. There is always an AVE at one of the nine platforms, they said, and some days they must put up with 16 uninterrupted hours of noise.

Even when engines are quiet there is usually something going on and the noise from the compressors used to empty the lavatories is infernal, they claimed.

Residents’ associations are asking for their homes to be soundproofed. Track operator Adif should take steps to eliminate excess noise from the AVEs, agreed Manuel Marin, councillor and PSOE spokesman.  

Adif and Alicante city hall needed to study the impact of the high speed trains on residents’ quality of life, especially in view of by-laws regulating noise levels.

“People living near the station are as entitled as anyone else not to be constantly disturbed,” Marin said.

He compared the situation to that of Alicante airport.  Cash was made available for soundproofing nearby properties, the PSOE spokesman pointed out.  Adif should now do the same for home affected by homes affected by constant noise from trains, he said.