I've lived in the downtown core for 27 years in various apartments & condos & never had noise problems until we bought our first place at Bay & Grosvenor (a S/W, 6th floor corner unit) and mistakenly didn't study the noise impacts. It was a nightmare when we moved in. Most every time the light turned green on Bay Street we could hear the rumbling/vibration of trucks and buses inside the unit. Across the street was Addison Used Cars (now Murano) and car alarms would go off all night plus there was a firehall about 100 metres east on Grosvenor Street - 'nuff said there. We sold the place after 10 months, investigated rush hour and late night noise at Alexander & Church and determined it to be fine. We moved into a 40 Alexander rental until our new place was built and never had any noise problems again. If you buy a condo (or when choosing a rental), do the best noise investigation possible if your sensitive to late night noise. We made a big mistake by not doing so with our first place. If you have a large enough bedroom in a noisy area and are having sleepless nights a solution can be to have glass sliding doors installed 3-4 feet away from the window. That small space can become a den or solarium by day, at bedtime slide the doors closed for double protection from outside noise. Some downtown 80's condos were designed like this for that very purpose.