Less beep, more sleep: city to test muffled snow plows

The City of Ottawa is hoping to get the beep out of your sleep by muffling the sound snowplows make when they back up this winter.

The city is launching a pilot that will see the high-pitched chirp on some of its plows replaced by multi-frequency alarms that sound more like pulses of white noise.

"If this trial is successful there will be a lot of happy citizens in this city," said Coun. Diane Deans.

Here is what the plows currentlysoundlike:

And here's the proposedalarm:

The city's current alarms costabout $29 each. The new one will cost between $151 and $266 each depending on the decibellevel.

The city's fleet services department hopes to have the new alarms installed on a few of its plows in time for winter. They'll be used in areas where the city gets the most 311 complaints about noisy snow plows.

If the new alarms are deemed safe and reduce the number of complaints, the city will consider replacing the alarms on its entire fleet.