Noise Levels in Highland Garden, Hollywood, FL | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
59 dBA
Average noise across Highland Garden
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
5,719
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
60% of Highland Garden residents
85 dBA
Loudest residential point
Food blender at arm’s length
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Highland Garden 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 5,719 Highland Garden residents, or 60.1%, live above that level. By land area, 59.4% of Highland Garden is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Highland Garden residents, grouped by direction from the center of Highland Garden. Western Highland Garden carries the highest population-weighted average; Central Highland Garden carries the lowest. Just 42% of residents in Central Highland Garden live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Western Highland Garden.
Central Highland Garden
53.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
42% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Highland Garden
53.6 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
32% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Highland Garden
63.3 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
71% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Highland Garden
55.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
50% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Highland Garden
69.4 dBA · Loud
Highway traffic 50 ft away
97% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Highland Garden sounds about 210% louder than Central Highland Garden to the human ear, a 16.3 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 I-95 do you need to be?
I-95 produces an estimated 81 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
81 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
67 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
330 ft
59 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
51 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
¼ mile
43 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 12% of Highland Garden sits under tree canopy (about average for neighborhoods) and roughly 48% 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 Highland Garden. 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.
Airport Noise
Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International (FLL) sits north of Highland Garden. 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 Highland Garden, particularly to the south, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Highland Garden
The bar chart below shows the share of Highland Garden residents in each noise band. About 36% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 32% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Highland Garden Compares
Highland Garden sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Highland Garden's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Driftwood, Hollywood Beach-Quadoman, Hollywood Hills, and Lakeshore at University Park.
Average noise level (dBA)
Highland Garden's 59.4 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Florida as a whole averages 51.6 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Highland Garden because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 60.1% of Highland Garden 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, 59.4% of Highland Garden's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Florida average of 31.8% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Highland Garden
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 I-95 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 12% of Highland Garden is under tree cover (about average for neighborhoods), and the dominant land cover is low-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. Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the north. Neighborhoods to the south 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.
