Noise Levels in Highlands-Kirkland, Kirkland, WA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
59 dBA
Average noise across Highlands-Kirkland
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
1,682
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
60% of Highlands-Kirkland residents
83 dBA
Loudest residential point
Food blender at arm’s length
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Highlands-Kirkland 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 1,682 Highlands-Kirkland residents, or 59.9%, live above that level. By land area, 69.3% of Highlands-Kirkland is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Highlands-Kirkland residents, grouped by direction from the center of Highlands-Kirkland. Southern Highlands-Kirkland carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Highlands-Kirkland carries the lowest. Just 11% of residents in Western Highlands-Kirkland live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Southern Highlands-Kirkland.
Central Highlands-Kirkland
57.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
49% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Highlands-Kirkland
57.7 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
56% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Highlands-Kirkland
66.5 dBA · Loud
Highway traffic 50 ft away
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Highlands-Kirkland
50.7 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
11% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Highlands-Kirkland sounds about 199% louder than Western Highlands-Kirkland to the human ear, a 15.8 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-405 do you need to be?
I-405 produces an estimated 79 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 office.
At source
79 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
68 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
330 ft
61 dBA
Busy restaurant
660 ft
55 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
¼ mile
48 dBA
Quiet office
½ mile
42 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 48% of Highlands-Kirkland sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most neighborhoods) 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.
-->
Rail Noise
Active freight rail runs through parts of Highlands-Kirkland. 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
Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) sits south of Highlands-Kirkland. 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 Highlands-Kirkland, 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 Highlands-Kirkland
The bar chart below shows the share of Highlands-Kirkland residents in each noise band. About 42% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 36% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Highlands-Kirkland Compares
Highlands-Kirkland sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Highlands-Kirkland's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with north-juanita-inglewood-finn-hill-wa, hidden-valley-bellevue-wa, Lake View, and willow-rose-hill-redmond-wa.
Average noise level (dBA)
Highlands-Kirkland's 58.9 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Washington as a whole averages 51.3 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Highlands-Kirkland because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 59.9% of Highlands-Kirkland 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, 69.3% of Highlands-Kirkland'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 Highlands-Kirkland
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-405 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 48% of Highlands-Kirkland is under tree cover (much heavier than most 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. Seattle-Tacoma International'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.
