Noise Levels in Fairoaks, Tampa, FL | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
54 dBA
Average noise across Fairoaks
Quiet office to normal conversation
680
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
17% of Fairoaks residents
78 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Fairoaks 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 680 Fairoaks residents, or 16.9%, live above that level. By land area, 24.8% of Fairoaks is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Fairoaks residents, grouped by direction from the center of Fairoaks. Eastern Fairoaks carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Fairoaks carries the lowest. Just 0% of residents in Western Fairoaks live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Eastern Fairoaks.
Central Fairoaks
51.3 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
11% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Fairoaks
62.0 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
51% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Fairoaks
51.6 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
12% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Fairoaks
61.2 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
19% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Fairoaks
44.2 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
0% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Fairoaks sounds about 243% louder than Western Fairoaks to the human ear, a 17.8 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.
How far back from Selmon Ext Expy do you need to be?
Selmon Ext Expy produces an estimated 67 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
67 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
165 ft
55 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
330 ft
48 dBA
Quiet office
660 ft
41 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 18% of Fairoaks sits under tree canopy (about average for neighborhoods) and roughly 44% 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
Tampa International (TPA) sits north of Fairoaks. 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 Fairoaks, particularly to the south, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Fairoaks
The bar chart below shows the share of Fairoaks residents in each noise band. About 66% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 31% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Fairoaks Compares
Fairoaks sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Fairoaks's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Port Tampa City, Sunset Park, Virginia Park, and Beach Park.
Average noise level (dBA)
Fairoaks's 54.1 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Florida as a whole averages 51.6 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Fairoaks because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 16.9% of Fairoaks 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, 24.8% of Fairoaks's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Florida average of 31.8% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Fairoaks
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 Selmon Ext 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 18% of Fairoaks is under tree cover (about average for neighborhoods), 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. Tampa International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the north. Neighborhoods to the south 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.
