Noise cameras: methods

Registered July 2026. The deadline in this measure has already passed; the rules below were still fixed before this site ever scored a month of it, and they will not move.

The promise

Local Law 7 of 2024 required the Department of Environmental Protection to operate twenty-five noise cameras - five in each borough - by September 2025. The cameras fine vehicles that exceed the legal sound limits.

How a camera writes a ticket

Each camera is a pole-mounted array about 15 feet up: microphones, a panoramic lens, and a license plate reader. When the microphones register 85 decibels or more from at least 50 feet away, the system records video and a DEP inspector reviews the clip before any summons goes out [DEP]. For scale: the city's own noise guide puts normal conversation at 50 to 65 decibels, Midtown traffic at 70 to 85, and a single motorcycle at 88 - and decibels are logarithmic, so each small step is a large jump in actual sound [DEP guide]. Sustained exposure at or above 85 decibels can cause hearing loss [NIH]. A summons costs $800 for a first offense and rises to $2,500 by the third; of the cases adjudicated in 2025, only 1.2 percent were dismissed [DEP 2025 report].

What the reports show

At working scale, the program is small but effective: in 2025 the cameras captured 15,994 noise events and inspectors issued 1,691 summonses from them - about 11 percent, because a human screens every clip - with penalties imposed of $1,472,265. One camera, at 210 East 36th Street in Murray Hill, produced over 40 percent of the citywide total on its own. The hardware is not the bottleneck: cameras run about $30,000 apiece and the entire 2025 operation cost about $600,000 [DEP 2025 report]. On Staten Island the reports offer no borough-specific explanation for the absence - only the program-wide one, that DEP "has not received appropriations to expand the program."

The metric

Two numbers, read from DEP's annual noise-camera enforcement reports and its public statements, updated as they land: cameras operating, by borough, against the five-per-borough target; and violations issued per year. The count stands at 10 citywide as of July 2026 - ten months past the deadline - with none in Staten Island.

Judgment calls

• The law made the mandate "subject to appropriations," and the funding was not provided. That clause is part of the record: the city can be compliant with the letter of the law while the outcome sits at ten of twenty-five. This measure scores the outcome - the cameras - and documents the clause, so both facts stay visible.
• Status is behind, not missed: cameras are still being added, and the target is reachable. If deployment stops, the status changes and says so.
• The count moves and the sources disagree at the edges: DEP's 2025 report lists thirteen camera locations with several removed or under maintenance, while mid-2026 reporting counts ten operating. This page uses the operating count and dates it.
• DEP reports annually, so this page moves slower than the monthly measures. Each update carries its as-of date.

Data

DEP annual reports on the noise camera enforcement program and the DEP noise code page.