The wearing courses (top layers) of the streets in towns are usually of asphalt concrete, paving stones or cement concrete blocks type. They must provide good load capacity, high friction, comfortable and quiet ride. The problem of traffic noise reduction by use of proper road surfaces is not very often addressed in Poland. Due to legislation and technical progress during the last decades, a substantial reduction of the power unit noise emitted by cars and trucks has been achieved. It is observed that nowadays even at low speeds typical for urban driving the dominating noise comes from the tyres. The paper compares typical road surfaces that are used in towns from the point of view of their influence on the traffic noise.