Noise Levels in Hurdtown, NJ | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
61 dBA
Average noise across Hurdtown
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
55
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
22% of Hurdtown residents
82 dBA
Loudest residential point
Food blender at arm’s length
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Hurdtown 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 55 Hurdtown residents, or 21.6%, live above that level. By land area, 41.8% of Hurdtown is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Hurdtown residents, grouped by direction from the center of Hurdtown. Central Hurdtown carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Hurdtown carries the lowest. Just 0% of residents in Eastern Hurdtown live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Central Hurdtown.
Central Hurdtown
63.4 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
17% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Hurdtown
38.1 dBA · Quiet
Soft rainfall
0% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Hurdtown
59.5 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
38% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Hurdtown
61.2 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Central Hurdtown sounds about 478% louder than Eastern Hurdtown to the human ear, a 25.3 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 do you need to be?
produces an estimated 82 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
82 dBA
Food blender at arm’s length
165 ft
70 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
330 ft
64 dBA
Busy restaurant
660 ft
57 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
¼ mile
51 dBA
Quiet office
½ mile
44 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 74% of Hurdtown sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most cities) and roughly 6% 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 Hurdtown. 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
Newark Liberty International (EWR) sits southeast of Hurdtown. 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 Hurdtown, particularly to the northwest, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Hurdtown
The bar chart below shows the share of Hurdtown residents in each noise band. About 9% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 82% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Hurdtown Compares
Hurdtown sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Hurdtown's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Brookside, Waterloo, Lake Telemark, and Green Pond.
Average noise level (dBA)
Hurdtown's 60.7 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. New Jersey as a whole averages 49.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Hurdtown because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 21.6% of Hurdtown 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, 41.8% of Hurdtown's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a New Jersey average of 25.2% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Hurdtown
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 74% of Hurdtown is under tree cover (much heavier than most cities), and the dominant land cover is deciduous forest. 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. Newark Liberty International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the southeast. Neighborhoods to the northwest 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.
