350 Neighbors Confront Universal Over Fast & Furious Coaster Screams
Building a roller coaster that makes people scream is generally considered a success. Universal Studios Hollywood may have been a little too successful.
The park's new Fast & Furious roller coaster sends riders racing, spinning and drifting around an outdoor track. And people are screaming. A lot.
Enough, in fact, that more than 350 nearby residents recently packed a meeting with Universal executives to discuss what can be done about it.
The New Coaster Was Built for Serious Thrills
Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift officially opened on Sept. 16.
It's the first high-speed outdoor roller coaster at Universal Studios Hollywood, featuring four launches, three inversions and vehicles that can rotate 360 degrees to mimic the drifting made famous by the movies.
The coaster reaches speeds of up to 72 mph. In other words, screaming isn't an unexpected response. But the riders eventually get off. The neighbors don't.
Nearby Residents Say They Can Hear the Screams
The trouble began before the official opening. Residents of Toluca Lake, which sits just north of the park across the Los Angeles River and a golf course, began raising concerns once the coaster started carrying riders during testing and its soft opening this summer.
Neighbors said the screams could be heard from their homes and backyards. Universal had already added sound barriers at key points along the track to help redirect the noise. But the complaints haven't faded.
More Than 350 Neighbors Met With Universal
On Wednesday, Sept. 30, more than 350 residents attended a closed-door meeting with Universal on the studio's Stage 7. The meeting lasted more than two hours.
Residents played recordings of what they could hear from their properties. They also showed a video claiming they hear a scream every 20 to 40 seconds while the coaster is running, which adds up to about 1,000 screams a day.
Among those in attendance was Roy P. Disney, Walt Disney's great-nephew and a Toluca Lake resident. He argued that the coaster may violate Universal's land use permits.
Universal executives outlined the steps the company has already taken and additional measures it's considering, including:
Adding a temporary barrier with more than 1,900 square feet of sound-absorbing material
Not running the coaster from 8 to 9 a.m. for the rest of the year
Adding more vehicle rotations that turn riders away from Toluca Lake at the moments they're most likely to scream
The cars already rotate away from the neighborhood at certain points on the track. It seems the engineers have reached the point where they're trying to redirect the sound of human screams.
The Meeting Got Pretty Heated
Unsurprisingly, the conversation wasn't a quiet one. People reported that some residents described the meeting as "hostile" as frustrations boiled over.
Tensions peaked during the question-and-answer portion. When one resident shouted for Universal to promise the screams would be gone within a year, others joined in. Steve Blum, Universal's executive vice president of engineering and safety, responded with a joke, suggesting the problem could be solved right away if residents simply wore noise-canceling headphones.
The comment didn't land. Residents fired back with responses like "how dare you," Deadline reported, and called the remark insulting.
Universal later said community feedback has helped shape its efforts and that it remains committed to finding new ways to reduce the noise. The company also maintained that the attraction complies with the sound standards established for the property.
Universal Is Still Working on the Noise
For now, the roller coaster isn't going anywhere. It's brand new and one of the park's biggest attractions, and Universal is still looking for ways to reduce its impact on the surrounding neighborhood.
That's what makes the story so strange. Theme parks spend enormous amounts of time and money designing rides thrilling enough to make riders scream.
Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift has certainly accomplished that mission. Now comes the trickier engineering challenge: keeping the screams on the ride.
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