We had a balcony like that
It was 5 yards as the crow flies from the tramway line, on a stretch where the trams were going full tilt (all of 45mph, at the edge of self-disassembly).
The road was cobblestone with tram tracks in it. We couldn't talk when trams passed by, but we were used to it.
One night some crack crew came on some state-sponsored rebuild project, military engineers and all, and ripped all the cobblestones out, laid down asphalt, raised the sidewalks, and replaced the tram tracks. All wooden crossties were replaced with concrete ones.
The next day my dad just had the time to shout his way through in order for a pipe to be laid down from our yard's walkway, under the new sidewalk (which had inexplicably gone from flush with our yard to ten inches higher) to the road, so the yard could drain at least a little. It was literally last minute, he had to run back from work to deal with this. He was told it will be ok, replied he's an engineer designing pipelines for a living, and that he'd gladly discuss this with whatever foreman they throw at him. They preferred to just lay 8ft of pipe.
The crossties of course he could do little about.
From this day on, when a tram went by - we not only could no longer talk, but could no longer think as well. Plus the vibrations were gone from kitchenware rattling to kitchenware falling off. And we had the only yard in the neighborhood which would flood a few hours after everybody else's. It would still flood of course, but the pipe helped a little.
And, my dad eventually walled off the door to the balcony, because it was no longer usable anyway with the noise and pollution, and insulating it was more problematic than walling it off. It wasn't in the US, and things like "
There will be no insulation this and that on the market for the next 8 months" was a thing.
So we had a balcony like that.
When we finally moved to a new place I couldn't sleep for a full month, because of the deafening silence (we were 1000ft away from a busy highway this time).
PS: As for the yellow gate - it's mislabeled. It's not a gate, it's Windows XP's integrated firewall.
