Noise Levels in Bedford, MA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
52 dBA
Average noise across Bedford
Quiet office to normal conversation
2,967
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
22% of Bedford residents
78 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Bedford 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 2,967 Bedford residents, or 21.9%, live above that level. By land area, 26.5% of Bedford is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Bedford residents, grouped by direction from the center of Bedford. Southern Bedford carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Bedford carries the lowest. Just 13% of residents in Northern Bedford live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Southern Bedford.
Central Bedford
54.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
29% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Bedford
53.8 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
22% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Bedford
50.0 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
13% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Bedford
54.6 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
38% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Bedford
50.8 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
17% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Bedford sounds about 38% louder than Northern Bedford to the human ear, a 4.6 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 US Hwy 3 do you need to be?
US Hwy 3 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
Busy restaurant
330 ft
52 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
44 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 60% of Bedford sits under tree canopy (heavier than most cities) 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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Airport Noise
General Edward Lawrence Logan International (BOS) sits southeast of Bedford. The U.S. Department of Transportation measures aviation noise around this airport directly, 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 Bedford, particularly to the northwest, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Bedford
The bar chart below shows the share of Bedford residents in each noise band. About 80% 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 Bedford Compares
Bedford sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Bedford's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Concord, Lynnfield, North Billerica, and Weston.
Average noise level (dBA)
Bedford's 52.2 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. Massachusetts as a whole averages 54.3 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Bedford because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 21.9% of Bedford residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's fewer than any of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 26.5% of Bedford's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Massachusetts average of 40.0% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Bedford
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 US Hwy 3 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 60% of Bedford is under tree cover (heavier than most cities), 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.
Airport noise is directional. General Edward Lawrence Logan International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the southeast. Neighborhoods to the northwest 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.
