Noise Levels in Fairway, KS | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
53 dBA
Average noise across Fairway
Quiet office to normal conversation
1,338
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
32% of Fairway residents
69 dBA
Loudest residential point
Highway traffic 50 ft away
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Fairway 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 1,338 Fairway residents, or 32.3%, live above that level. By land area, 40.4% of Fairway is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Fairway residents, grouped by direction from the center of Fairway. Northern Fairway carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Fairway carries the lowest. Just 2% of residents in Eastern Fairway live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Northern Fairway.
Central Fairway
51.1 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
11% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Fairway
47.4 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
2% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Fairway
55.9 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
46% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Fairway
53.2 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
41% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Fairway
55.6 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
63% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Fairway sounds about 80% louder than Eastern Fairway 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 Mission Rd do you need to be?
Mission Rd produces an estimated 55 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
55 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
165 ft
43 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
330 ft
36 dBA
Soft rainfall
660 ft
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 43% of Fairway sits under tree canopy (heavier than most cities) and roughly 22% 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 Fairway
The bar chart below shows the share of Fairway residents in each noise band. About 70% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 6% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Fairway Compares
Fairway sits at the louder end of the spectrum. Below: how Fairway's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Mission Hills, Edwardsville, Roeland Park, and DeSoto.
Average noise level (dBA)
Fairway's 52.7 dBA pop-weighted average is at the louder end of the spectrum. Kansas as a whole averages 51.2 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Fairway because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 32.3% of Fairway 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, 40.4% of Fairway's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Kansas average of 19.4% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Fairway
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 Mission Rd 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 43% of Fairway is under tree cover (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.
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.
