Noise Levels in 77995, TX | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

45 dBA
Average noise across 77995
Quiet suburban street at night
617
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
11% of 77995 residents
76 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across 77995 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
77995, TX Map of Noise Levels in 77995
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 617 77995 residents, or 10.7%, live above that level. By land area, 11.8% of 77995 is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in 77995 compares to similar-sized zip codes.

Noise by Part of 77995

Average noise levels for 77995 residents, grouped by direction from the center of 77995. Northern 77995 carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern 77995 carries the lowest. Just 1% of residents in Eastern 77995 live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Northern 77995.

Central 77995

43.1 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night

0% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern 77995

39.9 dBA · Quiet
Soft rainfall

1% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern 77995

47.7 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office

18% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern 77995

41.0 dBA · Quiet
Soft rainfall

2% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western 77995

44.6 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night

9% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern 77995 sounds about 72% louder than Eastern 77995 to the human ear, a 7.8 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 quiet suburban street at night.

At source
76 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
63 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
56 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
49 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
42 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall

Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 8% of 77995 sits under tree canopy (lighter than most zip codes) and roughly 15% 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 77995. 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 77995

The bar chart below shows the share of 77995 residents in each noise band. About 88% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 2% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How 77995 Compares

77995 sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how 77995's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with 77954, 77964, 77984, and 77957.

Average noise level (dBA)

77995's 44.6 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than 77995 because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 10.7% of 77995 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, 11.8% of 77995's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Texas average of 22.8% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to 77995

  • 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 8% of 77995 is under tree cover (lighter than most zip codes), and the dominant land cover is pasture / hay. 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.