Noise Levels in Kenawood-Rockwood, Lexington, KY | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
53 dBA
Average noise across Kenawood-Rockwood
Quiet office to normal conversation
1,428
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
28% of Kenawood-Rockwood residents
81 dBA
Loudest residential point
Food blender at arm’s length
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Kenawood-Rockwood 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 1,428 Kenawood-Rockwood residents, or 27.7%, live above that level. By land area, 33.3% of Kenawood-Rockwood is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Kenawood-Rockwood residents, grouped by direction from the center of Kenawood-Rockwood. Northern Kenawood-Rockwood carries the highest population-weighted average; Southern Kenawood-Rockwood carries the lowest. Just 7% of residents in Southern Kenawood-Rockwood live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Northern Kenawood-Rockwood.
Central Kenawood-Rockwood
52.0 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
14% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Kenawood-Rockwood
53.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
37% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Kenawood-Rockwood
54.7 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
44% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Kenawood-Rockwood
51.5 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
7% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Kenawood-Rockwood
54.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
29% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Kenawood-Rockwood sounds about 25% louder than Southern Kenawood-Rockwood to the human ear, a 3.2 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 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 office.
At source
81 dBA
Food blender at arm’s length
165 ft
69 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
330 ft
62 dBA
Busy restaurant
660 ft
54 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
¼ mile
47 dBA
Quiet office
½ mile
40 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 14% of Kenawood-Rockwood sits under tree canopy (about average for neighborhoods) and roughly 44% 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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Airport Noise
Blue Grass (LEX) sits west of Kenawood-Rockwood. The U.S. Department of Transportation models aviation noise around this airport from federal traffic data, 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 55 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Kenawood-Rockwood, particularly to the east, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Kenawood-Rockwood
The bar chart below shows the share of Kenawood-Rockwood residents in each noise band. About 77% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 4% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Kenawood-Rockwood Compares
Kenawood-Rockwood sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Kenawood-Rockwood's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Fairway-Liberty Heights, Downtown Lexington, Duncan Park, and Marriott's Griffin Gate Golf Culb.
Average noise level (dBA)
Kenawood-Rockwood's 53.3 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. Kentucky as a whole averages 50.5 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Kenawood-Rockwood because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 27.7% of Kenawood-Rockwood 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, 33.3% of Kenawood-Rockwood's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Kentucky average of 23.2% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Kenawood-Rockwood
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 14% of Kenawood-Rockwood 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. Blue Grass's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the west. Neighborhoods to the east 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.
