Noise Levels in Burtonsville, MD | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
52 dBA
Average noise across Burtonsville
Quiet office to normal conversation
2,836
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
19% of Burtonsville residents
79 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Burtonsville 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 2,836 Burtonsville residents, or 18.7%, live above that level. By land area, 28.0% of Burtonsville is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Burtonsville residents, grouped by direction from the center of Burtonsville. Southern Burtonsville carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Burtonsville carries the lowest. Just 6% of residents in Eastern Burtonsville live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a third of the share in Southern Burtonsville.
Central Burtonsville
52.6 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
25% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Burtonsville
47.6 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
6% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Burtonsville
53.2 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
23% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Burtonsville
55.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
19% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Burtonsville
54.8 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
28% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Burtonsville sounds about 67% louder than Eastern Burtonsville to the human ear, a 7.4 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 79 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
79 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
66 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
58 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
51 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
43 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
½ mile
36 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 37% of Burtonsville sits under tree canopy (about average for cities) and roughly 26% 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
Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) sits east of Burtonsville. 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 75 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Burtonsville, particularly to the west, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Burtonsville
The bar chart below shows the share of Burtonsville residents in each noise band. About 81% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 14% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Burtonsville Compares
Burtonsville sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Burtonsville's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Fairland, Cloverly, Adelphi, and Glenmont.
Average noise level (dBA)
Burtonsville's 52.5 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Maryland as a whole averages 52.3 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Burtonsville because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 18.7% of Burtonsville 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, 28.0% of Burtonsville'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 Burtonsville
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 37% of Burtonsville is under tree cover (about average for cities), and the dominant land cover is low-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. Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the east. Neighborhoods to the west 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.
