Noise Levels in Bayou St John, New Orleans, LA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
57 dBA
Average noise across Bayou St John
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
1,773
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
60% of Bayou St John residents
73 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Bayou St John 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 1,773 Bayou St John residents, or 59.6%, live above that level. By land area, 65.4% of Bayou St John is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Bayou St John residents, grouped by direction from the center of Bayou St John. Eastern Bayou St John carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Bayou St John carries the lowest. Just 50% of residents in Western Bayou St John live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about two-thirds of the share in Eastern Bayou St John.
Central Bayou St John
56.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
58% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Bayou St John
64.3 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Bayou St John
60.8 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
96% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Bayou St John
63.6 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Bayou St John
54.7 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
50% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Bayou St John sounds about 95% louder than Western Bayou St John to the human ear, a 9.6 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 do you need to be?
produces an estimated 73 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
73 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
59 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
330 ft
51 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 8% of Bayou St John sits under tree canopy (lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 56% 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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Airport Noise
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) sits west of Bayou St John. The U.S. Department of Transportation models aviation noise around this airport from federal traffic data, and the model uses those federal measurements rather than synthetic predictions.
Blocks under the approach and departure paths carry combined road-plus-aviation noise, with some exceeding 65 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Bayou St John, particularly to the east, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Bayou St John
The bar chart below shows the share of Bayou St John residents in each noise band. About 35% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 22% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Bayou St John Compares
Bayou St John sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Bayou St John's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with French Quarter, Bywater, East Carollton, and Holy Cross.
Average noise level (dBA)
Bayou St John's 56.6 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Louisiana as a whole averages 50.7 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Bayou St John because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 59.6% of Bayou St John 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, 65.4% of Bayou St John's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Louisiana average of 28.9% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Bayou St John
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 Bayou St John is under tree cover (lighter than most neighborhoods), and the dominant land cover is medium-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.
Airport noise is directional. Louis Armstrong New Orleans International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the west. Neighborhoods to the east of downtown show no measurable contribution from the airport.
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.
