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GREENSBORO — Residents along new sections of the western Urban Loop will find out next week what, if anything, state government can do to turn down the volume.

The Department of Transportation has scheduled a public meeting May 22 on noise woes caused by the loop's latest stretch, a 7.5-mile section that opened in late February.

People who live in neighborhoods along the route have complained almost from Day One about noise from the new road, which carries Interstate 40 from the airport area to its merger with Interstate 85 southwest of town.

The meeting at Pilot Elementary School will unveil results of a recent study that included reviewing noise estimates made in 2000 as the road was being planned, said Mike Mills, DOT divisional engineer for the Greensboro area.

Mills said he does not know the new study's specific findings. But he said it would be unlikely for DOT to do such a study and conclude that nothing further could be done to help people.

"We will do some mitigation, whether it's landscaping or something else," Mill said.

Residents of some neighborhoods have urged the DOT to install noise walls. If positioned properly, such walls can significantly reduce road noise.

But any place qualifying for such a wall must meet detailed standards that are applied uniformly statewide, Mills said,

"It's criteria set by the Federal Highway Administration," he said.

Disgruntled residents are hoping to muster a large crowd at the meeting to make a statement about how serious a problem the loop is causing, said Steve Gladson, a resident of King's Mill neighborhood.

The loop goes through the middle of Gladson's neighborhood, south of High Point Road and west of Groometown Road. It has a partial noise wall, but the wall is not tall enough to be effective, he said.

Government officials bear blame for allowing development too close to the eight-lane highway, Gladson said.

"They've allowed development where it should never have been," he said. "But no one in government wants to take responsibility for it."

Mills said the DOT will do whatever it can for people whose houses were built before 1996, when DOT publicly announced the loop's route.

"Anybody who built after that, we can't do anything for," he said. "We depend on the local government to advise people who are building new houses."

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