Noise Levels in Malba, Queens, NY | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
60 dBA
Average noise across Malba
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
2,523
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
79% of Malba residents
81 dBA
Loudest residential point
Food blender at arm’s length
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Malba 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 2,523 Malba residents, or 79.4%, live above that level. By land area, 84.8% of Malba is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Malba residents, grouped by direction from the center of Malba. Central Malba carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Malba carries the lowest. Just 37% of residents in Eastern Malba live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Central Malba.
Central Malba
61.3 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
97% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Malba
55.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
37% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Malba
60.3 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
56% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Malba
58.5 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Central Malba sounds about 52% louder than Eastern Malba to the human ear, a 6.0 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 Whitestone Expy do you need to be?
Whitestone Expy produces an estimated 79 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 suburban street at night.
At source
79 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
66 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
58 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
51 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
43 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 17% of Malba sits under tree canopy (about average for neighborhoods) and roughly 59% 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
Laguardia (LGA) sits west of Malba. 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 45 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Malba, 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 Malba
The bar chart below shows the share of Malba residents in each noise band. About 15% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 34% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Malba Compares
Malba sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Malba's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Middletown-Pelham Bay, University Gardens, Bayside, and Lincoln Park.
Average noise level (dBA)
Malba's 59.9 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. New York as a whole averages 55.4 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Malba because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 79.4% of Malba 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, 84.8% of Malba's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a New York average of 30.9% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Malba
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 Whitestone Expy 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 17% of Malba is under tree cover (about average for 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.
Airport noise is directional. Laguardia'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.
