Yes. The Commission plans to spend $7.5 million for noise-abatement walls under the project's Preferred Alternative.

The project's Environmental Assessment process included a noise-impact evaluation conducted in accordance with the noise abatement criteria of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) and Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT). Noise monitoring was conducted to document existing noise levels and to calibrate predictive noise models that specialists used to predict future noise levels for the project's various alternatives.

The Commission plans to provide more noise-abatement walls for this project than is required under standards established by the FHWA, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the New Jersey Department of Transportation. If the Commission were to be guided strictly by established criteria for noise-abatement, the project's noise-barrier installation costs would have been $3 million. But the Commission decided to exceed these established design standards. The agency committed to installing an additional $4.5 million worth of noise walls - 150-percent more than is required under FHWA/PennDOT/NJDOT criteria of noise levels, feasibility and cost reasonability.

The designated locations for additional noise walls were selected based on using a FHWA model that was calibrated using a relaxed threshold. This approach provided a defensible rationale for where public funds could be expended to install additional noise walls. Likewise, the modeling identified areas where further public expenditures for erection of additional noise walls could not be supported.