> What this tells me is that the internal combustion engine is a bad idea everywhere but especially in a dense urban core.

Engine noise only dominates up to roughly 20mph, at higher speeds the tire noise is the dominating component until roughly 100mph where wind becomes the dominant.

So this:

> The solution to road noise doesn’t have to be a dramatic rezoning and a reversion to Europe everywhere. It could be to make cars and trucks quieter.

Would mean both switching to electric cars and reducing speeds significantly to less than 20mph.