Noise Levels in 21813, MD | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
46 dBA
Average noise across 21813
Quiet office
116
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
4% of 21813 residents
74 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across 21813 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 116 21813 residents, or 4.2%, live above that level. By land area, 12.9% of 21813 is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for 21813 residents, grouped by direction from the center of 21813. Southern 21813 carries the highest population-weighted average; Central 21813 carries the lowest. Just 0% of residents in Central 21813 live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Southern 21813.
Central 21813
43.4 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
0% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern 21813
45.8 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
2% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern 21813
46.4 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
6% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern 21813
51.0 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
13% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western 21813
47.2 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
6% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern 21813 sounds about 69% louder than Central 21813 to the human ear, a 7.6 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 State Hwy 90 do you need to be?
State Hwy 90 produces an estimated 69 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
69 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
165 ft
56 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
330 ft
49 dBA
Quiet office
660 ft
42 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 41% of 21813 sits under tree canopy (heavier than most zip codes) and roughly 3% 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 21813. 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 21813
The bar chart below shows the share of 21813 residents in each noise band. About 93% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 1% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How 21813 Compares
21813 sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how 21813's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with 21850, 21874, 21849, and 21837.
Average noise level (dBA)
21813's 46.5 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Maryland as a whole averages 52.3 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than 21813 because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 4.2% of 21813 residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's in the middle of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 12.9% of 21813's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Maryland average of 32.9% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to 21813
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 State Hwy 90 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 41% of 21813 is under tree cover (heavier than most zip codes), and the dominant land cover is cultivated cropland. 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.
