Noise Levels in Fairwood, WA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
51 dBA
Average noise across Fairwood
Quiet office to normal conversation
4,347
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
23% of Fairwood residents
69 dBA
Loudest residential point
Highway traffic 50 ft away
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Fairwood 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 4,347 Fairwood residents, or 22.7%, live above that level. By land area, 25.5% of Fairwood is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Fairwood residents, grouped by direction from the center of Fairwood. Eastern Fairwood carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Fairwood carries the lowest. Just 12% of residents in Northern Fairwood live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Eastern Fairwood.
Central Fairwood
51.4 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
18% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Fairwood
52.7 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
31% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Fairwood
49.1 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
12% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Fairwood
50.9 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
24% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Fairwood
52.4 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
24% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Fairwood sounds about 28% louder than Northern Fairwood to the human ear, a 3.6 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 Parkside Way SE do you need to be?
Parkside Way SE 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
41 dBA
Soft rainfall
330 ft
35 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 34% of Fairwood sits under tree canopy (about average for cities) and roughly 39% 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
Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) sits west of Fairwood. 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 Fairwood, particularly to the east, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Fairwood
The bar chart below shows the share of Fairwood residents in each noise band. About 87% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 2% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Fairwood Compares
Fairwood sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Fairwood's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with East Renton Highlands, Covington, Bryn Mawr-Skyway, and Tukwila.
Average noise level (dBA)
Fairwood's 51.4 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Washington as a whole averages 51.3 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Fairwood because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 22.7% of Fairwood 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, 25.5% of Fairwood's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Washington average of 27.7% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Fairwood
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 Parkside Way SE 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 34% of Fairwood is under tree cover (about average for cities), 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. Seattle-Tacoma International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the west. Neighborhoods to the east 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.
