Noise Levels in Junior College Neighborhood Assc., Santa Rosa, CA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

54 dBA
Average noise across Junior College Neighborhood Assc.
Quiet office to normal conversation
1,634
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
38% of Junior College Neighborhood Assc. residents
72 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Junior College Neighborhood Assc. 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
Junior College Neighborhood Assc., Santa Rosa, CA Map of Noise Levels in Junior College Neighborhood Assc.
Click the map to explore
35 45 55 EPA 70 90
Quietest (dBA) Loudest
Colorblind friendly off

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 1,634 Junior College Neighborhood Assc. residents, or 38.1%, live above that level. By land area, 52.3% of Junior College Neighborhood Assc. is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in Junior College Neighborhood Assc. compares to similar-sized neighborhoods.

Noise by Part of Junior College Neighborhood Assc.

Average noise levels for Junior College Neighborhood Assc. residents, grouped by direction from the center of Junior College Neighborhood Assc.. Southern Junior College Neighborhood Assc. carries the highest population-weighted average; Central Junior College Neighborhood Assc. carries the lowest. Just 29% of residents in Central Junior College Neighborhood Assc. live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about two-thirds of the share in Southern Junior College Neighborhood Assc..

Central Junior College Neighborhood Assc.

52.1 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation

29% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern Junior College Neighborhood Assc.

57.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away

88% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern Junior College Neighborhood Assc.

52.6 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation

33% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Junior College Neighborhood Assc.

57.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away

49% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Junior College Neighborhood Assc.

52.2 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation

20% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Junior College Neighborhood Assc. sounds about 44% louder than Central Junior College Neighborhood Assc. to the human ear, a 5.3 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 72 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
72 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
58 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
330 ft
51 dBA
Quiet office
660 ft
43 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall

Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 20% of Junior College Neighborhood Assc. sits under tree canopy (heavier than most neighborhoods) and roughly 52% 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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How Noise Is Distributed Across Junior College Neighborhood Assc.

The bar chart below shows the share of Junior College Neighborhood Assc. residents in each noise band. About 61% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 10% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How Junior College Neighborhood Assc. Compares

Junior College Neighborhood Assc. sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Junior College Neighborhood Assc.'s average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Larkfield-Wikiup, Coffey Park, East Petaluma, and west-junior-college-santa-rosa-ca.

Average noise level (dBA)

Junior College Neighborhood Assc.'s 53.9 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. California as a whole averages 54.0 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Junior College Neighborhood Assc. because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 38.1% of Junior College Neighborhood Assc. residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's in the middle of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 52.3% of Junior College Neighborhood Assc.'s footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a California average of 36.0% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to Junior College Neighborhood Assc.

  • 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 20% of Junior College Neighborhood Assc. is under tree cover (heavier than most neighborhoods), and the dominant land cover is medium-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.

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.

Federal datasets used:

FHWA Highway Performance Monitoring System: road geometry, traffic counts, lane configuration
U.S. DoT Bureau of Transportation Statistics National Transportation Noise Map: aviation and rail noise, road calibration ground truth
USGS / MRLC National Land Cover Database: land cover and impervious surface coverage
USDA Forest Service Tree Canopy Cover: vegetation density for sound propagation
U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line: block-level geography and population
U.S. EPA Levels Document: 55 dBA outdoor reference level

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.

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