Noise Levels in 10917, NY | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
54 dBA
Average noise across 10917
Quiet office to normal conversation
593
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
28% of 10917 residents
81 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across 10917 at 100-meter resolution, combining road, aviation, and rail sources. Green areas measure below 45 dBA. Orange and red exceed the EPA's 55 dBA outdoor threshold linked to long-term health effects. Use the layer toggles to view each source on its own or all together.
Overall
Road
Rail
Aviation
Click the map to explore
35 dBa55 dBa (EPA limit)90+ dBa
3545557090
Quietest (dBA)Loudest
Colorblind friendlyoff
What the numbers sound like
30 dBAWhisper
40 dBASoft rainfall
45 dBAQuiet suburban street at night
50 dBAQuiet office
55 dBAEPA outdoor threshold: light traffic 100 ft away
60 dBANormal conversation an arm's length away
65 dBABusy restaurant
70 dBAHighway traffic 50 ft away
80 dBACity bus interior
Population Above the EPA Outdoor Threshold
The EPA's 55 dBA outdoor reference level is a common benchmark for residential noise exposure, especially for activity interference, annoyance, and long-term community noise concerns. About 593 10917 residents, or 27.7%, live above that level. By land area, 34.5% of 10917 is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for 10917 residents, grouped by direction from the center of 10917. Southern 10917 carries the highest population-weighted average; Western 10917 carries the lowest. Just 12% of residents in Western 10917 live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a third of the share in Southern 10917.
Central 10917
53.5 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
29% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern 10917
54.6 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
26% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern 10917
57.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
36% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern 10917
61.1 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
50% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western 10917
50.6 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
12% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern 10917 sounds about 107% louder than Western 10917 to the human ear, a 10.5 dBA gap. Every 10 dBA roughly doubles perceived loudness. Within any of these directions, two homes a quarter mile apart can still differ by 10 or more dBA depending on how close they sit to a major highway.
How far back from Nys Thruway do you need to be?
Nys Thruway produces an estimated 78 dBA at its loudest centerline points. Noise drops logarithmically with distance, with the exact rate depending on what's between you and the road. Tree cover, walls, terrain, and pavement type all matter. At roughly a quarter mile back, traffic fades into the noise level of a soft rainfall.
At source
78 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
64 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
56 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
48 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
41 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 55% of 10917 sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most zip codes) and roughly 13% is impervious surface like pavement and rooftops. Both are folded into the per-place decay rate above. Heavier canopy pulls noise down faster with distance; impervious surfaces slow the drop.
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Rail Noise
Active freight rail runs through parts of 10917. For most blocks the rail-only contribution is small. Combined road-plus-rail noise rarely exceeds road noise on its own. The exceptions are the handful of blocks within roughly a quarter mile of the right-of-way during pass-through hours.
Use the Rail toggle on the map above to isolate rail's contribution from road and aviation.
How Noise Is Distributed Across 10917
The bar chart below shows the share of 10917 residents in each noise band. About 56% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 14% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How 10917 Compares
10917 sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how 10917's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with 12577, 10926, 10511, and 12575.
Average noise level (dBA)
10917's 54.4 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. New York as a whole averages 55.4 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than 10917 because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 27.7% of 10917 residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's more than any of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 34.5% of 10917's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a New York average of 30.9% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to 10917
Distance from highways matters more than the neighborhood name. Two homes in the same zip code can differ by 20 dBA if one sits 100 meters from Nys Thruway and the other 500 meters away. The model captures this at 100-meter resolution, so noise exposure changes block by block.
Tree canopy can help reduce modeled noise exposure. Roughly 55% of 10917 is under tree cover (much heavier than most zip codes), and the dominant land cover is low-density developed open space. Both are measured from federal USDA Forest Service and USGS satellite imagery at 30-meter resolution. Streets with 60% or higher canopy show 3 to 5 dBA lower noise than comparable streets with bare ground or pavement, which is why the per-place decay rate above already accounts for it.
Sources & Methodology
The BestNeighborhood noise model is calibrated against nearly one million federal ground-truth measurements across four states. Road noise is computed from segment-level federal traffic data and propagated outward using physics-based acoustic decay, with attenuation rates that depend on the surrounding land cover.
All inputs are published federal datasets. Block-level noise is computed by combining road, rail, and aviation sound sources in the energy domain, the same physics used in professional environmental noise assessments. Read the full methodology.
