Tennessee Senate Bill SB2027

Tennessee 2025-2026 Regular Session

• Introduced: 1/22/26

Caption

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 4, Chapter 3 and Title 54, relative to highway traffic noise.

Summary

SB2027 authorizes a county or municipality, by resolution of its legislative body, to ask the Tennessee Department of Transportation to conduct a highway traffic noise study for residential properties located along the sound propagation path of a state highway, including interstate and national defense highway system routes. The request may be made only when a tree zone behind the homes has been removed, cut, or cleared for reasons unrelated to highway construction or alteration, and when there is no existing shielding or noise barrier. The bill defines key terms used in the new authority. A “noise barrier” includes walls, berms, or combined berm-and-wall systems that reduce highway traffic noise. “Shielding” includes natural or man-made auditory barriers such as hills or the top of a cut. A “tree zone” is a dense wooded area or several rows of trees that substantially block the view along the highway sound path. The act takes effect immediately upon becoming law.

Impact

The bill would add a new local-request process in Tennessee law allowing counties and municipalities to seek state highway traffic noise studies in limited circumstances. It does not itself require TDOT to build noise barriers or mandate mitigation, but it creates a statutory mechanism for local governments to trigger review where tree removal may have increased noise exposure for nearby residences. The measure affects Title 54 of the Tennessee Code Annotated and could influence future state-local coordination on highway noise complaints and potential mitigation planning.

Sentiment

The available voting history shows strong support for the bill in committee, with unanimous or near-unanimous approval at both the Transportation and Safety Committee and the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee. No committee transcripts were provided, and there is no recorded opposition in the materials supplied. Overall, the bill appears to have been viewed favorably as a targeted, practical response to neighborhood noise concerns.

Contention

No explicit controversy is reflected in the provided record. The main policy issue is the scope of the new study request authority: it is limited to situations where tree cover has been removed for non-highway reasons and where no existing barrier or shielding exists. Potential points of concern, though not documented in the transcripts, could include whether TDOT should be required to act on the studies, who bears the cost, and whether the bill could encourage more noise-barrier requests from local governments and residents.