Noise Levels in Holden, MA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
51 dBA
Average noise across Holden
Quiet office to normal conversation
2,782
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
20% of Holden residents
80 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Holden 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 2,782 Holden residents, or 19.5%, live above that level. By land area, 27.0% of Holden is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Holden residents, grouped by direction from the center of Holden. Central Holden carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Holden carries the lowest. Just 17% of residents in Northern Holden live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about two-thirds of the share in Central Holden.
Central Holden
56.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
29% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Holden
52.4 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
28% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Holden
50.3 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
17% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Holden
51.0 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
14% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Holden
51.7 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
19% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Central Holden sounds about 48% louder than Northern Holden to the human ear, a 5.7 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 I-190 do you need to be?
I-190 produces an estimated 74 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
74 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
60 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
330 ft
52 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 63% of Holden sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most cities) and roughly 13% 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 Holden. 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 Holden
The bar chart below shows the share of Holden residents in each noise band. About 79% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 2% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Holden Compares
Holden sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Holden's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Clinton, Northborough, Auburn, and Millbury.
Average noise level (dBA)
Holden's 51.3 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. Massachusetts as a whole averages 54.3 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Holden because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 19.5% of Holden 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, 27.0% of Holden's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Massachusetts average of 40.0% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Holden
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-190 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 63% of Holden is under tree cover (much heavier 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.
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.
