C'mon Man!

Living in a mixed use area has its positives and its negatives. I want to talk about one of the huge negatives right now because it just doesn't make sense to me. I fully understand that noise is a factor that I need to live with here at Citycentre. I've come to terms with the fact that the area has progressively gotten louder as more restaurants open and more customers pour in. I no longer care about the drunk crowd yelling and laughing while I am attempting to sleep. I no longer care about the cars honking and the slamming doors either. I'm at peace with the delivery trucks that slam their ramps and sliding doors. I am even okay with the street sweepers that come through at odd hours.

What I don't understand is the extremely loud grease vacuum truck that comes by every quarter around 3:00 AM on workdays to empty the underground grease trap!

What makes this truck so loud is the fact that it has to rev up its engine to compensate for the vacuum motor when it runs. It's technology called "PTO" or Power Take Off. The vacuum motor itself is awefully loud too. There has not been a single instance where I was able to sleep through the noise. Imagine your household vaccum noise, multiplied by 10, right outside your window at 3 in the morning.

Here are the issues I see from the restaurants' perspectives. The manhole covers for access to the grease traps are in the middle of parking spots so the truck has to arrive before cars start filling up those spots. The truck would have to shut down one side of the Boulevard for about 30 minutes while it did its thing.

Look, just tell the truck to come at 6:00 AM, cone off the area around it and block traffic for 30 minutes, and then go on its merry way. There are multiple entrances to this complex for those that arrive that early and those people all work here and park in the parking garages anyway. Think of it this way. It is easy for someone to drive around to another entrance, but I will never regain the health I lost from abruptly waking up and losing sleep once a quarter.

Random Musings: Citycentre has some exciting events lined up for the Christmas season. I'll keep you updated, stay tuned.