Noise Levels in Maple Bluff, WI | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
54 dBA
Average noise across Maple Bluff
Quiet office to normal conversation
417
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
28% of Maple Bluff residents
68 dBA
Loudest residential point
Highway traffic 50 ft away
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Maple Bluff 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 417 Maple Bluff residents, or 28.1%, live above that level. By land area, 27.5% of Maple Bluff is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Maple Bluff residents, grouped by direction from the center of Maple Bluff. Southern Maple Bluff carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Maple Bluff carries the lowest. Just 32% of residents in Northern Maple Bluff live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Southern Maple Bluff.
Central Maple Bluff
53.9 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
21% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Maple Bluff
53.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
28% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Maple Bluff
53.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
32% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Maple Bluff
57.5 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
82% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Maple Bluff
56.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
18% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Maple Bluff sounds about 34% louder than Northern Maple Bluff to the human ear, a 4.2 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 Farwell Dr do you need to be?
Farwell Dr 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
43 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
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 43% of Maple Bluff sits under tree canopy (heavier than most cities) and roughly 18% 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.
-->
Airport Noise
Dane County Regional/Truax Field (MSN) sits northeast of Maple Bluff. 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 50 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Maple Bluff, particularly to the southwest, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Maple Bluff
The bar chart below shows the share of Maple Bluff residents in each noise band. About 65% 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 Maple Bluff Compares
Maple Bluff sits at the louder end of the spectrum. Below: how Maple Bluff's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Shorewood Hills, Arlington, Wyocena, and Dane.
Average noise level (dBA)
Maple Bluff's 54.2 dBA pop-weighted average is at the louder end of the spectrum. Wisconsin as a whole averages 53.0 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Maple Bluff because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 28.1% of Maple Bluff 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, 27.5% of Maple Bluff's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Wisconsin average of 29.6% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Maple Bluff
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 Farwell Dr 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 43% of Maple Bluff is under tree cover (heavier than most cities), and the dominant land cover is low-density developed open space. 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. Dane County Regional/Truax Field's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the northeast. Neighborhoods to the southwest 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.
