Noise Levels in Foggy Bottom, Washington, DC | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
62 dBA
Average noise across Foggy Bottom
Busy restaurant
13,144
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
92% of Foggy Bottom residents
78 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Foggy Bottom 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 13,144 Foggy Bottom residents, or 92.4%, live above that level. By land area, 93.0% of Foggy Bottom is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Foggy Bottom residents, grouped by direction from the center of Foggy Bottom. Southern Foggy Bottom carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Foggy Bottom carries the lowest. Just 72% of residents in Northern Foggy Bottom live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, three-quarters of the share in Southern Foggy Bottom.
Central Foggy Bottom
62.5 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
95% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Foggy Bottom
62.9 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Foggy Bottom
59.7 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
72% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Foggy Bottom
68.1 dBA · Loud
Highway traffic 50 ft away
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Foggy Bottom
63.5 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Foggy Bottom sounds about 79% louder than Northern Foggy Bottom to the human ear, a 8.4 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 Interstate 66 Bn do you need to be?
Interstate 66 Bn 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.
At source
76 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
61 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
53 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
44 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
¼ mile
36 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 2% of Foggy Bottom sits under tree canopy (much lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 83% 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
Ronald Reagan Washington Ntl (DCA) sits south of Foggy Bottom. 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 55 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Foggy Bottom, particularly to the north, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Foggy Bottom
The bar chart below shows the share of Foggy Bottom residents in each noise band. About 6% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 69% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Foggy Bottom Compares
Foggy Bottom sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Foggy Bottom's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Georgetown, Adams Morgan, South West, and Glover Park.
Average noise level (dBA)
Foggy Bottom's 62.4 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. District of Columbia as a whole averages 57.1 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Foggy Bottom because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 92.4% of Foggy Bottom 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, 93.0% of Foggy Bottom's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a District of Columbia average of 60.6% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Foggy Bottom
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 Interstate 66 Bn 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 2% of Foggy Bottom is under tree cover (much lighter than most neighborhoods), and the dominant land cover is high-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. Ronald Reagan Washington Ntl's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the south. Neighborhoods to the north 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.
