Noise Levels in 44308, OH | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

58 dBA
Average noise across 44308
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
449
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
64% of 44308 residents
76 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across 44308 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
44308, OH Map of Noise Levels in 44308
Click the map to explore
35 45 55 70 90
Quietest (dBA) Loudest
Colorblind friendly off

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 449 44308 residents, or 63.6%, live above that level. By land area, 79.3% of 44308 is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in 44308 compares to similar-sized zip codes.

Noise by Part of 44308

Average noise levels for 44308 residents, grouped by direction from the center of 44308. Eastern 44308 carries the highest population-weighted average; Western 44308 carries the lowest. Just 40% of residents in Western 44308 live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Eastern 44308.

Central 44308

57.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away

54% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern 44308

59.9 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away

81% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern 44308

59.8 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away

100% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western 44308

55.6 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation

40% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern 44308 sounds about 35% louder than Western 44308 to the human ear, a 4.3 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 do you need to be?

produces an estimated 76 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
76 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
61 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
330 ft
52 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
43 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 0% of 44308 sits under tree canopy (much lighter than most zip codes) and roughly 87% 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 44308. 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 44308

The bar chart below shows the share of 44308 residents in each noise band. About 16% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 32% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How 44308 Compares

44308 sits at the louder end of the spectrum. Below: how 44308's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with 44250, 44702, 44251, and 44490.

Average noise level (dBA)

44308's 58.0 dBA pop-weighted average is at the louder end of the spectrum. Ohio as a whole averages 51.1 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than 44308 because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 63.6% of 44308 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, 79.3% of 44308's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Ohio average of 26.4% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to 44308

  • 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 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 0% of 44308 is under tree cover (much lighter than most zip codes), and the dominant land cover is high-intensity developed land. 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.

Federal datasets used:

FHWA Highway Performance Monitoring System: road geometry, traffic counts, lane configuration
U.S. DoT Bureau of Transportation Statistics National Transportation Noise Map: aviation and rail noise, road calibration ground truth
USGS / MRLC National Land Cover Database: land cover and impervious surface coverage
USDA Forest Service Tree Canopy Cover: vegetation density for sound propagation
U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line: block-level geography and population
U.S. EPA Levels Document: 55 dBA outdoor reference level

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.