Noise Levels in Lake Hiawatha, NJ | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
43 dBA
Average noise across Lake Hiawatha
Quiet suburban street at night
425
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
7% of Lake Hiawatha residents
79 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Lake Hiawatha 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 425 Lake Hiawatha residents, or 6.9%, live above that level. By land area, 7.3% of Lake Hiawatha is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Lake Hiawatha residents, grouped by direction from the center of Lake Hiawatha. Eastern Lake Hiawatha carries the highest population-weighted average; Central Lake Hiawatha carries the lowest. Just 7% of residents in Central Lake Hiawatha live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, roughly the same as the share in Eastern Lake Hiawatha.
Central Lake Hiawatha
40.4 dBA · Quiet
Soft rainfall
7% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Lake Hiawatha
45.4 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
6% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Lake Hiawatha
45.2 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
10% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Lake Hiawatha
41.9 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
5% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Lake Hiawatha
41.3 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
0% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Lake Hiawatha sounds about 41% louder than Central Lake Hiawatha to the human ear, a 5.0 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 N Beverwyck Rd do you need to be?
N Beverwyck Rd produces an estimated 58 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
58 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
165 ft
45 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
330 ft
38 dBA
Soft rainfall
660 ft
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 31% of Lake Hiawatha sits under tree canopy (about average for cities) and roughly 42% 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
Newark Liberty International (EWR) sits southeast of Lake Hiawatha. 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 Lake Hiawatha, 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 Lake Hiawatha
The bar chart below shows the share of Lake Hiawatha residents in each noise band. About 97% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 0% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Lake Hiawatha Compares
Lake Hiawatha sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Lake Hiawatha's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Pine Brook, Roseland, Montville, and North Caldwell.
Average noise level (dBA)
Lake Hiawatha's 42.7 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest 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 Lake Hiawatha because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 6.9% of Lake Hiawatha 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, 7.3% of Lake Hiawatha'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 Lake Hiawatha
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 N Beverwyck Rd 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 31% of Lake Hiawatha is under tree cover (about average for cities), 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. 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.
