Kimberly Zachmann would love to put a swing set or slide in her Shelby Township backyard for her 3-year-old son Kameron.
But she said she can't.
The 42-year-old mother said the noise from the nearby M-53 expressway around 24 Mile Road "will just startle you." And it's not just one or two occasional vehiclesgoing by.
"It's continuous," she said. "It startles him. He cries. He runs to you. I have to scream at the top of my lungs to get his attention. The noise is just too loud."
Zachmann reached out to townshipand state officials about constructing a sound wallalong residential areas bordering the expressway, telling the Free Press that the noise has gotten worse in the last two years.
Feeling as though some of the responses she received are a "bureaucratic
loop," she created an online petition for residents, homeowners and community members living adjacent to the road to sign that urges transportation authorities and elected officials to construct continuous, sound-absorptive noise mitigation walls.
The petition asks the Michigan Department of Transportation and municipal leaders to:
- Conduct comprehensive decibel and noise impact studies at designated residential locations along M-53 to establish decibel levels relative to federal noise abatement criteria.
- Allocate infrastructure funding for noise mitigation, specifically designating state and federal funding to construct high-efficiency sound barrier walls for the vulnerable neighborhoods.
- Establish a community action timeline and host public listening sessions with affected corridor residents to share findings, engineering feasibility plans and construction timelines.
Zachmann, who has lived in her home nearly seven years, said she has a constant headache, plays with her son in the front of their house (where the hum of the traffic can be heard), and her family uses sleep machines to help block out the noise in the middle of the night. A tree line separating her house from the expressway is sparse, she said, and they can still see and hear vehicles constantly.
The family uses a smoker and grill in the backyard, but not the deck, and Zachmann stopped maintaining two water features, as they are drowned out by the traffic noise, with vehicles permitted to travel at 65 mph for trucks and 70 mph for other vehicles on the expressway.
Zachmann's neighbor, Doreen Nied, 81, who has lived in her home since 1992, said traffic volumes have increased along the corridor, making their neighborhood noisier. The online petition says the situation also creates environmental and public health hazards and depreciates property values and neighborhood quality.
Nied said there's "wall to wall" traffic in the mornings and evenings, and in the evenings and the weekends, the expressway "turns into a dragstrip."
Through the years, Nied said, she and her husband have spent close to $100,000 in renovations to help muffle the noise: triple-pane windows, a berm with shrubs, extra insulation, solid doors inside the home and an air purifier system to help clean the air. Some of the changes have helped, she said, but outside "it just kept getting worse and worse − vibration, fumes."
Nied said people could question why they would buy a house near a freeway. She said the couple moved to their home from Detroit to be closer to her husband's job − a house that was nice and affordable for them.
"It wasn't like this 35 years ago. It was much, much quieter. It was more country out here," she said. "But progress has stepped in. Houses have gone in everywhere around here, and the expressway has become more and more crowded."
MDOT: Road was built six decades ago
The township's population has grown from 29,467 in 1970 to 48,655 in the 1990 census to an estimated 80,415 in 2025.
M-53 was constructed from Uticato Washington Township in 1965, said MDOT spokesperson Diane Cross. The road is two lanes each way.
Cross said the latest traffic volumes on M-53/Van Dyke at or near 24 Mile are from Nov. 29, 2023, and account for two-way traffic over 24 hours. The average daily traffic was 62,310, with 30,949 northbound and 31,361 southbound, she said.
MDOT told Zachmann that for an existing roadway to qualify for a traffic noise study that may lead to a sound wall, "there must be additional capacity added to M-53, which we have not added any additional lanes since the freeway was built. There was a U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) voluntary Type II traffic noise program designed for residences that were built before the adjacent highway was originally constructed, but this program remains suspended since Fiscal Year 2024 and for the foreseeable future."
It said one option would be to contact the township to see if it is interested in investing in a wall or berm. The municipality would be responsible for creating a design for MDOT to review, and it would need to go through MDOT's permit process to be constructed in MDOT's right-of-way using the municipality's funding.
Another option, MDOT said, would be if the municipality wants to build something in its right-of-way, which may not be available depending on where the neighborhood is located. The municipality then would not need to go through the MDOT permit process.
The state agency also shared awebsite with information about noise abatement, including MDOT's 114-page traffic noise handbook and nine appendices, and an approximately four-minute-longvideo from 2024 that explains noise walls, including an overview of where and how they can be installed and the process to determine if one is eligible to be built.
State rep: Sound barriers come up in other locations, too
Township Supervisor Rick Stathakis told Zachmann in an email that highway sound barriers would cost $3.5 million to $6.5 million per mile for one side of the road. If the township did a sound study for this specific location, it would have to do it for the entirety of the highway. The cost, on the low end, could be about $42 million, he said, adding that the township does not have this kind of funding in its budget to construct a sound wall.
Stathakis told the Free Press that the township's general budget, without police, fire and public works, is about $20 million. He said the sound wall initiative needs to be led by MDOT, which, like the township, has funding constraints.
"Do we need a sound barrier? Absolutely. But there are so many projects we have to prioritize. It's not a question of what we want to do; it's a question of what we can do," he said, adding that road funding is a No. 1 priority for the township.
"We understand her frustration. Not only her, others, too," Stathakis said, adding that sound barriers are needed at other locations as well, with money needing to come from the state. "But I hear her; and I've made calls to MDOT, and I'll continue to do that."
In February 2025, Sen. Michael Webber, R-Rochester Hills, and Rep. Ron Robinson, R-Utica, introduced bills they said would help residents seeking relief from noisy highways by making it easier to access funding for sound barriers through MDOT. In a release at the time, they said the bills were modeled after a Minnesota law, as it was the only state with a state-level funding mechanism for sound wall construction rather than relying solely on federal dollars.
In the proposal, the Michigan legislation would create a fund within the Department of Treasury, administered by MDOT, to support qualifying noise abatement projects where sound walls currently are not located. It would allow state and local governments to apply for funds to build out sound wall infrastructure, according to the release.
The bills were referred to committees. Robinson, who represents Utica and parts of Shelby Township, Warren and Sterling Heights, said he hopes something can be done in the future by state government on this issue.
Robinson, a former Utica city councilman, said he heard a lot of people talking about sound barriers when he was door-knocking during his campaign. About six months ago, he heard about a Sterling Heights man with a classic Corvette that was getting hit by debris from the M-53 expressway at his home and now pays to store his car elsewhere.
"It's not just Macomb County, it's the entire state," Robinson said of the demand for sound barriers. "I hear from communities all over the state. Ther're quite a few areas that this is a serious issue for residents."
Robinson said most communities don't have the kinds of funds needed for sound barriers, and he would like to make it a part of the state budget so funds can be allotted when needed.
According to a legislative analysis with his bill last year, there were 308 noise barriers on state trunkline highways, with a total length of 76 miles.
It indicated that 12 barriers (3.74 miles) were in need of replacement or rehabilitation at an estimated cost of $19 million, and an additional 60 barriers (13.5 miles) were in need of repair, with an estimated cost of $27 million. Capital preventive maintenance, to preserve sound barriers currently in good condition, would cost about $2 million annually, according to the analysis.
Like Zachmann, Nied said she can't sit and entertain in her backyard. She said she's not considering moving as she's retired, though her husband still works. The couple is settled, Nied said, and she's made her home the way she wants it. But, she said, a sound barrier would be helpful to alleviate some of the noise.
Zachmann said she has found shards of glass in her yard, presumably from debris thrown from passing vehicles, and has spent about $20,000 to replace windows and porch doors to try to add more soundproofing. If she doesn't see progress on the issue, she said, she'll consider moving.
"I can't have a toddler who, quite literally, can't play in his backyard," she said.
Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @challreporter.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Traffic noise is disrupting Shelby Twp. homes. Residents want relief
