Noise Levels in Folsom, CA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
51 dBA
Average noise across Folsom
Quiet office to normal conversation
15,977
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
22% of Folsom residents
83 dBA
Loudest residential point
Food blender at arm’s length
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Folsom 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 15,977 Folsom residents, or 22.5%, live above that level. By land area, 29.7% of Folsom is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Folsom residents, grouped by direction from the center of Folsom. Central Folsom carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Folsom carries the lowest. Just 16% of residents in Northern Folsom live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about two-thirds of the share in Central Folsom.
Central Folsom
55.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
25% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Folsom
50.6 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
23% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Folsom
48.8 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
16% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Folsom
52.8 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
26% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Folsom
52.4 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
24% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Central Folsom sounds about 54% louder than Northern Folsom to the human ear, a 6.2 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 US Hwy 50 do you need to be?
US Hwy 50 produces an estimated 78 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
78 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
64 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
55 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
47 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
39 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 9% of Folsom sits under tree canopy (lighter than most cities) and roughly 49% 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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Rail Noise
Active freight rail runs through parts of Folsom. For most blocks the rail-only contribution is small. Combined road-plus-rail noise rarely exceeds road noise on its own. The exceptions are the handful of blocks within roughly a quarter mile of the right-of-way during pass-through hours.
Use the Rail toggle on the map above to isolate rail's contribution from road and aviation.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Folsom
The bar chart below shows the share of Folsom residents in each noise band. About 86% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 3% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Folsom Compares
Folsom sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Folsom's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Rancho Cordova, Citrus Heights, Rocklin, and Carmichael.
Average noise level (dBA)
Folsom's 51.1 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. California as a whole averages 54.0 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Folsom because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 22.5% of Folsom 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, 29.7% of Folsom's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a California average of 36.0% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Folsom
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 US Hwy 50 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 9% of Folsom is under tree cover (lighter than most 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.
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.
