Noise Levels in Cedar Heights, NJ | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

62 dBA
Average noise across Cedar Heights
Busy restaurant
458
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
33% of Cedar Heights residents
79 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Cedar Heights 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 Heights, NJ Map of Noise Levels in Cedar Heights
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 458 Cedar Heights residents, or 32.7%, live above that level. By land area, 12.1% of Cedar Heights is above 55 dBA.

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

Noise by Part of Cedar Heights

Average noise levels for Cedar Heights residents, grouped by direction from the center of Cedar Heights. Central Cedar Heights carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Cedar Heights carries the lowest. Just 0% of residents in Northern Cedar Heights live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Central Cedar Heights.

Central Cedar Heights

65.0 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant

41% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern Cedar Heights

57.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away

6% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern Cedar Heights

34.6 dBA · Quiet
Soft rainfall

0% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Central Cedar Heights sounds about 722% louder than Northern Cedar Heights to the human ear, a 30.4 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
Highway traffic 50 ft away
330 ft
59 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
52 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
¼ mile
44 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
½ mile
37 dBA
Soft rainfall

Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 63% of Cedar Heights sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most cities) and roughly 8% 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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How Noise Is Distributed Across Cedar Heights

The bar chart below shows the share of Cedar Heights residents in each noise band. About 7% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 77% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How Cedar Heights Compares

Cedar Heights sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Cedar Heights's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Port Murray, High Bridge, Three Bridges, and Bernards.

Average noise level (dBA)

Cedar Heights's 61.5 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. New Jersey as a whole averages 49.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Cedar Heights because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 32.7% of Cedar Heights residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's more than any of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 12.1% of Cedar Heights's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a New Jersey average of 25.2% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to Cedar Heights

  • 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 63% of Cedar Heights is under tree cover (much 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.

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.

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