tinan, I doubt that noise is as easily abated by plantings as you may think. CALTRANS engineers are experts and even they have a hard time abating sound. Sometimes sound-deflecting walls are built only to find the sound, instead of being deflected upwards, goes in unexpected directions and creates headaches for another neighborhood which previously had no problems at all. Land topography has more impact on noise deflection than anything else. If you walk along the Bodega Head trail, at certain sections the ocean noise is thunderous; yet 50' away without any change except for a shift 10' inland and a protruding cliffside edge, the wave noise drops by two-thirds. No trees or level change are involved at all; it is all topographic noise deflection. Take a side path below cliff level and suddenly you can't hear any ocean noise, everything is silent. Certainly trees "en masse" will deflect noise. But you'd have to own a half-acre lot to plant enough trees to mass thickly enough to create a viable deflection wall on a level property. Walk around a freeway underpass, and you'll probably find that in certain spots almost underneath the freeway (it needs to be solid, not the type with separate roadways) the car noises stop. Sometimes they merge into a deep booming noise that is more pressure than noise, a rather odd feeling. All of us live in a geographically hilly area. This means that cell phone reception gives carriers nightmares and that noise from our maze of freeways travels upwards and outwards in a variety of directions, funneled by geography and climate. I can occasionally hear train whistles from the Amtrak lines two miles west - but not always, only at certain times. If sound were a simple thing, I would ALWAYS be able to hear them - the tracks don't move, and neither does my house (unless there's a rupture in the Hayward Fault, LOL). But I can't, even though I know that the trains blow their whistles at the same crossing twenty times a day.

How are they planning to mount the laminated glass in the opening? From what I read it will be a more or less permanent mount? One potential advantage (but also potential acoustical disadvantage) of the plastic insert is that it's much lighter than the laminated glass so it can be relatively easy to remove from the opening if necessary, whereas the laminated glass is going to be heavy. A laminated insert using 3mm glass for both lites will be over 50lbs at the size window that you describe, and while laminated glass can be very safe when handling, it's still a chore if you have to remove it from the opening for any reason. But acoustically that weight (density) is to your advantage. The .06 acoustical laminate glass means that they are using a 1.52mm thick PVB interlayer in the laminated glass. Generically .030" or .76mm interlayer is considered safety, .060" or 1.52mm is considered security, and .090" or 2.28mm is considered to be impact resistant, or the thickness generally used for hurricane impact glass. Adding additional thickness also adds some acoustical advantage as well, roughly 1 to 2 dB advantage for every additional .76mm thickness. I would suggest that if you are going to be looking at comparing laminated glass to acrylic, you might consider using the laminated glass in your bedroom.

Hi,I live in mainland,we are neighbours.haha. I think that change the windows to double glazing plastic-steel windows will be better.Just like the windows for keep warm in the NorthEast of China in winter.

@DK Haas ... While oleander happens to be poisonous, your comments about it are bonafide alarmism, I'm merely pointing out the TRUE fact that people and animals don't suffer ill effects of it because they don't eat it. The number of deaths per year from Oleander, averaged out, don't even add up to 1 in spite of the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of the plants commonly situated in populated areas in warm parts of the country ... and many more millions around the globe. It literally is about the last thing a person needs to worry about. A person is more likely to die from licking a frog.