{"id":850271,"date":"2026-09-16T22:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T22:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/850271\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T22:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T22:30:10","slug":"fast-new-rollercoaster-at-universal-studios-has-neighbors-furious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/850271\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Fast’ New Rollercoaster At Universal Studios Has Neighbors Furious"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn spite of his last name, Roy P. Disney is not much different than the many other residents who populate Toluca Lake. He, like so many others, has deep, familial roots in the community and appreciates his leafy and bucolic surroundings. And lately, he\u2019s found that he has even more in common with his well-heeled neighbors \u2014 a mutual aversion to Universal Studios\u2019 new Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift rollercoaster. <\/p>\n

\n\tEver since Universal began testing the ride in June, Disney has been subjected to a cacophony of blood-curdling screams from his home. Retreating to the confines of his lakeside sanctuary is not an option; he can still hear the irritating shrieks from inside his bedroom. <\/p>\n

\n\tAnd now that Hollywood Drift has officially opened today with promises that it will rocket riders \u201cat speeds of up to 72 MPH and at a force of up to 3.6 Gs along 4,100 feet of elaborate aerial track,\u201d Disney is preparing for the worst. Now he\u2019ll hear those screams from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. every day until \u2014 or if \u2014 Universal makes further attempts to mitigate the noise. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve been talking to myself,\u201d said Disney, the great-nephew of Walt Disney who talked to Deadline Wednesday from a backyard of a home on Valley Spring Road \u2014 a veritable ground zero when it comes to hearing (or suffering from) the sounds of the thrill seeking coaster riders. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m talking to myself. I feel like the complaints go into what I call a round file, and I feel like they figure it\u2019s part of the war they\u2019re playing, and they\u2019re not listening to us, they\u2019re not honoring us, and so we have to do more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tResidents have formed their own community advisory panel<\/a> to petition Universal for change. After months of complaints, the amusement park has agreed to meet with residents Sept. 30 on the Universal City Lot. There, longtime homeowners like Fred Berri \u2014 whose family has lived in the neighborhood for more than 50 years \u2014 plan to share ideas on how to fix the problem.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are not asking for Universal to close down the ride,\u201d Berri, an interior designer, tells Deadline. \u201cWe know it\u2019s not going to go away. But there are ways to make the noise contained. There are many suggestions, one of which is from the movies. All the cars have hard tops. On the coaster, they\u2019re convertibles. Why don\u2019t they build plastic hard tops on those train cars? And then another really good suggestion came from a fan on Instagram who rode the ride. He said he really loved it but it\u2019s ugly. You see nothing. Why don\u2019t they build fake facades of the buildings from the movie so when you\u2019re in the coaster you\u2019re immersed in that experience? Not only could that wall serve a dual purpose of making the ride better, it\u2019ll shield the sound from the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u201cFast & Furious: Hollywood Drift\u201d roller coaster at Universal Studios Hollywood<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUniversal<\/p>\n

\n\tThe park has already taken some steps to hush their new attraction. The ride\u2019s track sits on pea gravel to help quiet the roar of the coaster. There are also transparent \u201cscream screens\u201d that shield one of the higher curves of the ride, though residents believe it was added to protect the sensitive ears of employees in nearby corporate offices, not the Toluca Lake neighborhood. A 940-foot sound wall was also erected. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhen contacted by Deadline Wednesday, a Universal Studios Hollywood spokesperson shared this statement: \u201cCommunity feedback has been an important part of this process and has directly informed our work, including an additional sound barrier to further lessen sound levels in adjacent neighborhoods. Testing completed to date confirms the attraction is operating in compliance with sound ordinances applicable to Universal property, which are more stringent than City and County codes.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe studio also put out a release Wednesday announcing the coaster\u2019s official opening. It included this quote from Scott Strobl, the EVP and GM of Universal Studios Hollywood. \u201cFast & Furious: Hollywood Drift is officially open, and we are so excited to be able to put guests in the driver\u2019s seat of one of the most celebrated film franchises in history. The debut of this first-of-it-kind roller coaster is a literal game changer for Universal Studios Hollywood, and we look forward to sharing this thrilling experience with fans of the FastSaga and our guests visiting from around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the meantime, County Supervisor Kathryn Barger has inserted herself into the saga. Since Universal Studios sits on county land, she reached out to the Toluca Lake community with a letter that states \u201cmy office will continue working directly with residents and Universal Studios to monitor the attraction and identify any measures that may be necessary to minimize noise or other impacts on surrounding neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat offers little comfort to folks like Nancy Jundi, who owns a home on the other side of Lankershim Boulevard near Valleyheart Drive (which she calls Universal Studios\u2019 \u201cfront yard.\u201d) Not only can she see the park\u2019s giant Minion from her backyard, she can hear the constant wails from the coaster. The owner of a cloud based post and production company said the noise interrupts her daily business calls via Zoom. <\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I was moving into our version of Disneyland, but I didn\u2019t expect all of this,\u201d said Jundi. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In spite of his last name, Roy P. Disney is not much different than the many other residents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206,48429],"class_list":["post-850271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-universal-studios-hollywood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}