Noise Levels in Marshbrooke, Matthews, NC | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
52 dBA
Average noise across Marshbrooke
Quiet office to normal conversation
3,377
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
22% of Marshbrooke residents
71 dBA
Loudest residential point
Highway traffic 50 ft away
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Marshbrooke 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 3,377 Marshbrooke residents, or 22.2%, live above that level. By land area, 24.1% of Marshbrooke is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Marshbrooke residents, grouped by direction from the center of Marshbrooke. Central Marshbrooke carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Marshbrooke carries the lowest. Just 15% of residents in Eastern Marshbrooke live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Central Marshbrooke.
Central Marshbrooke
54.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
31% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Marshbrooke
49.6 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
15% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Marshbrooke
51.5 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
20% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Marshbrooke
52.3 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
24% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Marshbrooke
54.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
22% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Central Marshbrooke sounds about 39% louder than Eastern Marshbrooke to the human ear, a 4.8 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 SR-3168 do you need to be?
SR-3168 produces an estimated 61 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
61 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
165 ft
49 dBA
Quiet office
330 ft
42 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
660 ft
36 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 50% of Marshbrooke sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most neighborhoods) and roughly 26% 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
Charlotte/Douglas International (CLT) sits west of Marshbrooke. 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 Marshbrooke, 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 Marshbrooke
The bar chart below shows the share of Marshbrooke residents in each noise band. About 84% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 6% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Marshbrooke Compares
Marshbrooke sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Marshbrooke's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with East Forest, Back Creek Church Road, Hidden Valley, and Ballantyne West.
Average noise level (dBA)
Marshbrooke's 52.5 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. North Carolina as a whole averages 49.7 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Marshbrooke because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 22.2% of Marshbrooke 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, 24.1% of Marshbrooke's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a North Carolina average of 22.6% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Marshbrooke
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 SR-3168 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 50% of Marshbrooke is under tree cover (much heavier than most neighborhoods), 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. Charlotte/Douglas International'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.
