This map shows modeled outdoor noise across East Oak 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.
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 3,637 East Oak Hill residents, or 33.4%, live above that level. By land area, 37.5% of East Oak Hill is above 55 dBA.
See how noise in East Oak Hill compares to similar-sized neighborhoods.
Noise by Part of East Oak Hill
Average noise levels for East Oak Hill residents, grouped by direction from the center of East Oak Hill. Eastern East Oak Hill carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern East Oak Hill carries the lowest. Just 14% of residents in Northern East Oak Hill live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a third of the share in Eastern East Oak Hill.
Eastern East Oak Hill
51% of people above 55 dBA
Northern East Oak Hill
14% of people above 55 dBA
Southern East Oak Hill
44% of people above 55 dBA
Western East Oak Hill
17% of people above 55 dBA
Eastern East Oak Hill sounds about 97% louder than Northern East Oak Hill to the human ear, a 9.8 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.
Loudest Road Corridors
The model evaluates every road in East Oak Hill using federal traffic counts, posted speeds, heavy-truck ratios, and pavement type. The source level shown is the modeled noise at the road centerline, where it is loudest. Noise drops with distance, faster in vegetated areas and slower over open pavement.
How far back from S Mo-pac Expy do you need to be?
S Mo-pac Expy 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.
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 13% of East Oak Hill sits under tree canopy (about average for neighborhoods) and roughly 47% 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.
Airport Noise
Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) sits east of East Oak Hill. 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 East Oak Hill, 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 East Oak Hill
The bar chart below shows the share of East Oak Hill residents in each noise band. About 50% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 36% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How East Oak Hill Compares
East Oak Hill sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how East Oak Hill's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Garrison Park, Riverside, Montopolis, and Franklin Park.
Average noise level (dBA)
East Oak Hill's 56.9 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than East Oak Hill because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 33.4% of East Oak 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, 37.5% of East Oak Hill'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 East Oak 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 S Mo-pac Expy 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 13% of East Oak 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. Austin-Bergstrom International'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.
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.