Noise Levels in Harris Hill, NY | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
55 dBA
Average noise across Harris Hill
Quiet office to normal conversation
265
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
29% of Harris Hill residents
78 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Harris Hill 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 265 Harris Hill residents, or 29.1%, live above that level. By land area, 28.0% of Harris Hill is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Harris Hill residents, grouped by direction from the center of Harris Hill. Southern Harris Hill carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Harris Hill carries the lowest. Just 18% of residents in Northern Harris Hill live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Southern Harris Hill.
Eastern Harris Hill
54.5 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
32% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Harris Hill
54.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
18% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Harris Hill
58.7 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
40% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Harris Hill
55.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
28% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Harris Hill sounds about 39% louder than Northern Harris Hill to the human ear, a 4.7 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 do you need to be?
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 quiet suburban street at night.
At source
78 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
65 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
58 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
51 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
43 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
½ mile
36 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 14% of Harris Hill sits under tree canopy (lighter than most cities) and roughly 41% 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
Buffalo Niagara International (BUF) sits southwest of Harris Hill. The U.S. Department of Transportation models aviation noise around this airport from federal traffic data, 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 Harris Hill, particularly to the northeast, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Harris Hill
The bar chart below shows the share of Harris Hill residents in each noise band. About 24% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 8% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Harris Hill Compares
Harris Hill sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Harris Hill's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Shawnee, Rapids, Pendleton, and Cowlesville.
Average noise level (dBA)
Harris Hill's 55.3 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. New York as a whole averages 55.4 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Harris Hill because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 29.1% of Harris Hill 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, 28.0% of Harris Hill's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a New York average of 30.9% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Harris Hill
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 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 14% of Harris Hill is under tree cover (lighter 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.
Airport noise is directional. Buffalo Niagara International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the southwest. Neighborhoods to the northeast 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.
