Noise Levels in Midvale Heights, Madison, WI | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
55 dBA
Average noise across Midvale Heights
Quiet office to normal conversation
1,041
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
33% of Midvale Heights residents
79 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Midvale Heights 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 1,041 Midvale Heights residents, or 33.2%, live above that level. By land area, 34.3% of Midvale Heights is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Midvale Heights residents, grouped by direction from the center of Midvale Heights. Southern Midvale Heights carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Midvale Heights carries the lowest. Just 24% of residents in Western Midvale Heights live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about two-thirds of the share in Southern Midvale Heights.
Central Midvale Heights
53.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
21% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Midvale Heights
54.6 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
33% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Midvale Heights
56.9 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
60% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Midvale Heights
59.1 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
37% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Midvale Heights
52.7 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
24% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Midvale Heights sounds about 56% louder than Western Midvale Heights to the human ear, a 6.4 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 do you need to be?
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 office.
At source
79 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
67 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
330 ft
60 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
54 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
¼ mile
47 dBA
Quiet office
½ mile
40 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 40% of Midvale Heights sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most neighborhoods) and roughly 25% 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 Midvale Heights. 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 Midvale Heights, 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 Midvale Heights
The bar chart below shows the share of Midvale Heights residents in each noise band. About 59% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 12% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Midvale Heights Compares
Midvale Heights sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Midvale Heights's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Dudgeon-Monroe, Hill Farms-University Neighborh, Sunset Village, and Wexford.
Average noise level (dBA)
Midvale Heights's 54.8 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Wisconsin as a whole averages 53.0 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Midvale Heights because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 33.2% of Midvale Heights residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's fewer than any of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 34.3% of Midvale Heights'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 Midvale Heights
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 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 40% of Midvale Heights is under tree cover (much heavier than most neighborhoods), 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. 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.
