Here’s What It’s Actually Like Living With The Noise Of I-74 Construction

Oh I-74. Our relationship has become so complicated.

On the one hand, the new bridge is going to look awesome. It's coming together pretty quickly, with major removals having started this week. It does mess with traffic routes, which is frustrating but easy enough to work around.

But there's one thing I'm truly struggling with. Not to sound too much like the Grinch, but the noise, noise noise NOISE.

You've probably seen other stories about this; a number of residents have been complaining. And if you scroll through the comment section on these, it's a lot of "suck it up" and "you're just going to have to deal with it!"

I thought the same thing when I saw the headlines. Then the noise got to my neck of the woods. I'll be honest; it sounds like a giant robot is terrorizing Moline, and it takes about 10 minutes for a headache to set in. And it goes late into the night. I mean almost 1 a.m.

Moline's typical nuisance ordinance requires construction noise to end by 9 p.m. But last month, Moline's city aldermen approved a three-week variance to work late into the night. So unfortunately, it looks like we'll be dealing with this well into May. My advice? Get yourself some of those cheap, foam earplugs. They did wonders for me.