Noisy tree trimming upsets New Haven residents

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) --The sound of chainsaws and falling tree branches during the overnight hours is keeping one New Haven woman from being able to sleep. News 8 caught the crews in the act at 2 a.m.

"They're chain sawing trees, or, I don't know what the heck they're doing," said Kathedral Bayl of New Haven, who lives near the Amtrak tracks where crews are trimming trees overnight. "They can't do this during the day?"

It's necessary to keep the tracks safe, but it's going on right in the backyards of folks who live along Walnut Street.

"This is a residential neighborhood," Bayl said. "You know, you've got families working, besides me, kids needing to go to school in the morning, and for some reason they're doing this in the middle of the night."

Bayl says she's barely slept all week because of all that noise. She contacted News 8, so we went out to listen for ourselves.

"So if you could look into it, I'd really appreciate it," said Bayl.

An Amtrak spokesman says the work has to go on at night so it won't disrupt train service. The project is scheduled to go on until June first.

The Amtrak spokesman says Amtrak realizes the noise can be disruptive, but says the work has to be done, and it has to be done at night when there aren't any trains. He says there's no plan to change that just because of complaints from the neighborhood. But in the past, they've done things a little differently.

Less than two years ago, also in New Haven, Amtrak started trimming trees , but caused a rock slide and had to build a retaining wall. That was all going on in the middle of the night until enough people complained that Mayor DeStefano and other officials got Amtrak to do the work in the day instead.

A dozen years ago when Amtrak was upgrading tracks in eastern Connecticut for the new Acela trains, homeowners there say the railroad put them up in hotels for weeks at a time.

Bayl isn't looking for that kind of treatment, but she wanted some warning about the chain saws in the middle of the night.

"I mean it would have been nice if we had something that says, you know, this is how long it's going to take, how many nights it's going to be happening. In English and Spanish for the neighborhood," said Bayl.

The Amtrak spokesman told News 8 the railroad notified the New Haven Mayor's office before the work started. The Mayor's office disputes that.

Amtrak stressed that the tree trimming is important for the safety of everyone.

News 8 is taking all of the necessary steps to make sure Bayl is given a warning next time.