To be fair most old European cities are very minerals with relatively narrow street so the car noise is a bigger problem than it should.

I think that is among the reasons that explains the popularity of the policies aiming to reduce car space inside Paris. The avenues made by Haussman are bad as well on this aspect

Even though cars didn't exist then, there was a famous architect contemporary to Hausmann who vehemently criticized his "corridor" avenue and was proposing to put the courtyards between/ in front of the buildings instead of inside or beside them. He called that "boulevard à Redans", and the idea is awesome, and I suppose this would have helped with the noise problem :