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GREENSBORO — The state government is responding to noise complaints about the western portion of the Urban Loop by re-examining scientific studies that determined where sound barriers would be built.

Should more noise abatement walls be built? Join the discussion at the Debatables blog.

The Department of Transportation will host a public meeting in about six weeks to discuss that review and tell neighbors of the new road what can be done about the noise, said Doug Galyon, N.C. Board of Transportation chairman.

"All of the data will be reviewed to verify its accuracy," Galyon said Monday of the initial noise analysis.

"We're going to work together and come up with the best solution we can."

Galyon told the regional Metropolitan Planning Organization that the review emerged from a meeting last week among himself, Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett and a number of other state and federal officials, including experts in noise abatement.

Since the loop's latest section opened in late February, state DOT has been peppered with complaints from neighborhoods along the 7.5-mile new route for Interstate 40 and fledgling I-73.

For DOT to build more noise walls along the way, the review would have to find errors in the initial study justifying them, said Mike Mills, DOT's divisional engineer for the Greensboro area.

"If they missed some receptors (houses) and noise walls have to be extended, then it would be at DOT's expense, not anybody else's," Mills said.

If the review of DOT's initial study finds no mistakes, municipal engineers would work with DOT to do whatever else is possible to lessen noise, such as landscaping, said Adam Fischer, Greensboro's acting director of transportation.

In building a road, the state designs noise protection for houses that exist when the route is decided, which happened more than a decade ago for the Greensboro loop.

Owners of houses built afterward are out of luck, under DOT's theory that local officials, developers and home buyers should know about the road and avoid it.

Some residents have protested they knew the loop was coming but had no idea it would be an 8-lane interstate.

In other action Monday, the regional transportation planning group:

* Endorsed the proposed 4.8-mile, $26 million Downtown Greenway as a public-private partnership.

* Declared May 12-16 "Bike-to Work Week."

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com