PORTSMOUTH — New Hampshire Department of Transportation officials confirmed the city’s Pannaway Manor neighborhood met the criteria for the construction of a sound barrier between homes there and nearby Interstate 95.

That comes as great news to the neighborhood's residents who have been lobbying the state for as long as 30 years to construct a sound barrier to protect the neighborhood from truck and car noise from I-95, which they say has increased over the years.

DOT officials also told the City Council Monday a proposed sound wall along Rockingham Avenue meets the state’s criteria that the project is “reasonable and feasible.”

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However, state transportation representatives also told the council Monday night a proposed sound barrier for the New Franklin School neighborhood — which is located close to I-95, Route 1 and the Spaulding Turnpike — did not meet the criteria.

The decision came despite the fact DOT officials acknowledged that the school was affected by noise from I-95 and a sound barrier would mitigate the problem.

City Councilor Paige Trace said she found it “extraordinary that the state can say that it’s the area that would gain the most benefit, but these children aren’t worth enough to make that project feasible.”

“A child’s mind is a terrible thing to abuse when they don’t have any ability to say, 'Please may I have a sound barrier so I might learn?'” Trace said. “It’s my frustration with the state … that I don’t understand simply why there is not going to be a sound barrier near New Franklin of all places.”

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Reached Tuesday, Trace said the decision by DOT officials “all boils down to dollars.”

“I think it was unfortunate that they couldn’t have come up with a more clear, transparent way of explaining their findings,” she said. “The fact so much of Portsmouth is not getting sound barriers sort of tells the story in and of itself.”

Assistant DOT Commissioner Bill Cass told the City Council the projects qualified for state monies if they met the criteria because of the upcoming I-95 shoulder use project.

The state will allow the use of I-95 shoulders from about the Portsmouth traffic circle to the Maine/New Hampshire border during “the peak volume periods, primarily in the summer weekends,” he said.

Because that project is adding capacity to the highway, the sound barrier projects qualify for funding, he said, “and warrant noise mitigation because of that project.”

State DOT officials “looked at the whole area and … I will say up front there are some areas that do meet the criteria and warrant noise mitigation and we are fully prepared to bring those projects forward,” he said at the start of his presentation.

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“There are other areas that don’t meet the criteria, and, as a result, we wouldn’t be constructing sound walls in those areas,” he added.

Instead of focusing on sound levels as they exist now, the DOT noise study projected sound levels 20 years into the future to help determine if a project met their criteria, DOT officials said.

Mayor Rick Becksted said he expects the use of the I-95 shoulders to begin as soon as 2023 and hopes construction on the sound barriers will start at the same time or sooner.

Robert Lister, a former Portsmouth mayor and school superintendent, has been lobbying state officials to install sound barriers along the entire I-95 corridor that runs through the city, saying the traffic noise creates quality-of-life issues for multiple neighborhoods.

He told the council he was “very excited” to hear that some projects have been approved, but added, “I still want to advocate for New Franklin School.”

“As a former superintendent of schools I have to tell you … one-third of the kids in this city grades pre-K through 5 attend that school,” Lister said. “If we don’t do something with New Franklin School shame, shame."

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City Councilor and Mayor-elect Deaglan McEachern said he heard “a lot of positives” from the DOT presentation, stating “sound barriers are coming to Portsmouth.”

“I don’t want that overshadowed,” he said during Monday’s meeting.

But he too questioned the formula state officials use to determine if a project meets the criteria for sound barriers.

“I know a lot of folks have been looking at this for a real long time and folks on this council led the charge on that,” he said. “It just seems that the formula that weighs a school as it would two multi-family homes seems like there’s inequity in that for the children that are attending that school.”

Becksted said only two of the nine proposed sound barriers projects in Portsmouth for the I-95 corridor that were included in the draft 2023-2032 Ten-Year Transportation Improvement Plan met the DOT criteria.

He said he was “extremely disappointed” that the New Franklin School project didn’t meet the criteria.

“Both of my children went through the school system there, and I remember hearing the noise from the highway during school functions,” he said. “It was overwhelmingly loud then, and I know it’s only getting worse.”

He’s happy that some projects met the criteria, but added, “Am I satisfied? No, I’m not. It’s unfair to the other neighborhoods that have to deal with the same noise issues.”