Noise Levels in Long Island, ME | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
47 dBA
Average noise across Long Island
Quiet office
12
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
5% of Long Island residents
60 dBA
Loudest residential point
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Long Island 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 12 Long Island residents, or 5.2%, live above that level. By land area, 12.7% of Long Island is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Long Island residents, grouped by direction from the center of Long Island. Western Long Island carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Long Island carries the lowest. Just 0% of residents in Eastern Long Island live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Western Long Island.
Central Long Island
48.3 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
5% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Long Island
42.7 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
0% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Long Island
48.5 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
9% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Long Island
43.2 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
2% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Long Island
50.5 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
9% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Long Island sounds about 72% louder than Eastern Long Island to the human ear, a 7.8 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 Rd Inv 05 63902 do you need to be?
Rd Inv 05 63902 produces an estimated 55 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
55 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
165 ft
40 dBA
Soft rainfall
330 ft
35 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 68% of Long Island sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most cities) and roughly 3% 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
Portland International Jetport (PWM) sits west of Long Island. 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 Long Island, 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 Long Island
The bar chart below shows the share of Long Island residents in each noise band. About 100% 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 Long Island Compares
Long Island sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Long Island's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with South Freeport, Chebeague Island, Bailey Island, and Buxton.
Average noise level (dBA)
Long Island's 46.6 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Maine as a whole averages 48.0 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Long Island because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 5.2% of Long Island 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, 12.7% of Long Island's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Maine average of 17.5% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Long Island
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 Rd Inv 05 63902 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 68% of Long Island is under tree cover (much heavier than most cities), and the dominant land cover is evergreen 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. Portland International Jetport'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.
