The City of London is exceptionally busy (not far off half a million people traveling to a square mile of land and back out again every day, and going in and ou

The City of London is exceptionally busy (not far off half a million people traveling to a square mile of land and back out again every day, and going in and out of offices throughout the day), but doesn't have that much vehicle noise in many parts. There's a congestion charging scheme for all private vehicles, almost all the roads have a 20 mph speed limit, many are access-only, or pedestrianized. The central junction at Bank is bus and bicycle only to reduce congestion. Most people come in by the Tube, or walking from mainline stations, or by bus. Obviously you have construction going on, fairly frequent jackhammers, and some busy streets. Electric vehicles will definitely make a big difference (particularly electric buses), but you can get a feel for that sort of world. It's pleasant, you can't say too much more than that. Better to limit the stress to occur only in the offices, not so much on the streets as well! The only downside I can think of is for cyclists, and to a lesser extent pedestrians, to be able to hear vehicles. Hopefully lower levels of noise in general will mean being able to hear the tire noise. Will be interesting to see whether we have to tackle that, and if so, how. I actually walked past a diesel vehicle yesterday which was announcing "this vehicle is turning left", hope that doesn't become too normal. But if we did have to generate sound for safety, maybe we could even improve safety from the current situation, by having sound standards which somehow had an intuitive way of indicating vehicle size, speed, or turning intent.