Noise Levels in Corn Hill, Rochester, NY | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
58 dBA
Average noise across Corn Hill
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
1,576
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
84% of Corn Hill residents
80 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Corn Hill 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 1,576 Corn Hill residents, or 84.4%, live above that level. By land area, 82.6% of Corn Hill is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Corn Hill residents, grouped by direction from the center of Corn Hill. Central Corn Hill carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Corn Hill carries the lowest. Just 0% of residents in Western Corn Hill live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Central Corn Hill.
Central Corn Hill
58.7 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
91% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Corn Hill
56.7 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
69% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Corn Hill
50.5 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
0% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Central Corn Hill sounds about 77% louder than Western Corn Hill to the human ear, a 8.2 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 I-490 do you need to be?
I-490 produces an estimated 66 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
66 dBA
Busy restaurant
165 ft
53 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
330 ft
45 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
660 ft
38 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 14% of Corn Hill sits under tree canopy (about average for neighborhoods) and roughly 64% 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
Frederick Douglass/Greater Rochester International (ROC) sits southwest of Corn Hill. 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 55 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Corn Hill, particularly to the northeast, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Corn Hill
The bar chart below shows the share of Corn Hill residents in each noise band. About 8% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 28% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Corn Hill Compares
Corn Hill sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Corn Hill's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with charles-house-rochester-ny, swillburg-rochester-ny, mayors-heights-rochester-ny, and united-neighbors-together-rochester-ny.
Average noise level (dBA)
Corn Hill's 58.1 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. New York as a whole averages 55.4 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Corn Hill because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 84.4% of Corn Hill 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, 82.6% of Corn Hill's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a New York average of 30.9% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Corn Hill
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 I-490 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 14% of Corn Hill is under tree cover (about average for 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. Frederick Douglass/Greater Rochester International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the southwest. Neighborhoods to the northeast 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.
