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

44 dBA
Average noise across Cedar Creek
Quiet suburban street at night
431
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
4% of Cedar Creek residents
70 dBA
Loudest residential point
Highway traffic 50 ft away

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Cedar Creek 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
Cedar Creek, TX Map of Noise Levels in Cedar Creek
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 431 Cedar Creek residents, or 3.8%, live above that level. By land area, 7.3% of Cedar Creek is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in Cedar Creek compares to similar-sized cities.

Noise by Part of Cedar Creek

Average noise levels for Cedar Creek residents, grouped by direction from the center of Cedar Creek. Central Cedar Creek carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Cedar Creek carries the lowest. Just 3% of residents in Northern Cedar Creek live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Central Cedar Creek.

Central Cedar Creek

51.1 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation

8% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern Cedar Creek

45.6 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet suburban street at night

5% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern Cedar Creek

42.6 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night

3% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Cedar Creek

43.3 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night

3% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Cedar Creek

47.1 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office

4% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Central Cedar Creek sounds about 80% louder than Northern Cedar Creek to the human ear, a 8.5 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 70 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
70 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
165 ft
56 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
330 ft
48 dBA
Quiet office
660 ft
40 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall

Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 17% of Cedar Creek sits under tree canopy (lighter than most cities) and roughly 5% 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

Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) sits northwest of Cedar Creek. 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 Cedar Creek, particularly to the southeast, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.

How Noise Is Distributed Across Cedar Creek

The bar chart below shows the share of Cedar Creek residents in each noise band. About 96% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 0% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How Cedar Creek Compares

Cedar Creek sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Cedar Creek's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Lockhart, Del Valle, Bastrop, and Dale.

Average noise level (dBA)

Cedar Creek's 44.4 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Cedar Creek because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 3.8% of Cedar Creek 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, 7.3% of Cedar Creek'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 Cedar Creek

  • 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 17% of Cedar Creek is under tree cover (lighter than most cities), and the dominant land cover is shrub / scrub. 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. Austin-Bergstrom International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the northwest. Neighborhoods to the southeast 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.

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.