It’s an unusual invitation for city councillors. One east London resident has personally invited them to visit her at home, which backs onto Veterans Memorial Parkway.

She hopes a visit to her backyard will help put end to what she says is years of suffering from noise pollution.

Collette Dodds says it’s next to impossible to have a conversation in the backyard of her home on Simpson Crescent.

And she wants local policymakers to hear for themselves what she suffers through every day - before they vote on recommendation to turn down a request for a noise wall along Veterans Memorial Parkway.

“This is a highway. It's not a street. It's not a road. It's not a crescent. It's a highway,” she says.

With 25,000 cars and trucks a day passing through, the parkway serves as a major thoroughfare for heavy industrial traffic.

Nick Sauter with the Argyle Community Association says a noise wall was promised years ago - when Veterans Memorial was doubled in size to four lanes.

“If the councillors were to come out here to one of the backyards what would they experience?  They would experience especially over a period of time the same discomfort and stress that these people who live here have to face every single day.”

A consultant's report found the difference in noise level between a wall and a berm would be so minimal that you'd never even notice, so the Civic Works Committee is recommending adding one metre of height to the existing berm among the most sensitive areas.

There is at least one notable difference between the two plans – the price – according to committee chair Paul Van Meerbergen. Berm improvements would run $300,000 vs. $1.7 million for a wall.

“If we start trying to give excessive standard levels to one location such as the Veterans Memorial Parkway when it's not necessary, other areas of the city are going to be coming forward wanting the same treatment and who could blame them.  And therefore we're opening ourselves up to millions of dollars in noise attenuation improvements, which provide little or no benefits,” Van Meerbergen says.

But Dodds says “If you're not here and you're not listening to it then you don’t know what's happening.”