Noise Levels in Milesburg, PA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
57 dBA
Average noise across Milesburg
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
514
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
49% of Milesburg residents
80 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Milesburg 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 514 Milesburg residents, or 49.3%, live above that level. By land area, 47.1% of Milesburg is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Milesburg residents, grouped by direction from the center of Milesburg. Central Milesburg carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Milesburg carries the lowest. Just 31% of residents in Western Milesburg live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Central Milesburg.
Central Milesburg
60.6 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
79% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Milesburg
56.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
47% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Milesburg
58.3 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
15% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Milesburg
57.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
62% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Milesburg
54.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
31% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Central Milesburg sounds about 55% louder than Western Milesburg to the human ear, a 6.3 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 Z H Confair Memorial Hw do you need to be?
Z H Confair Memorial Hw produces an estimated 76 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
76 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
62 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
55 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
47 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
39 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 23% of Milesburg sits under tree canopy (about average for cities) and roughly 30% 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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Rail Noise
Active freight rail runs through parts of Milesburg. For most blocks the rail-only contribution is small. Combined road-plus-rail noise rarely exceeds road noise on its own. The exceptions are the handful of blocks within roughly a quarter mile of the right-of-way during pass-through hours.
Use the Rail toggle on the map above to isolate rail's contribution from road and aviation.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Milesburg
The bar chart below shows the share of Milesburg residents in each noise band. About 30% 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 Milesburg Compares
Milesburg sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Milesburg's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Runville, Lemont, Blanchard, and Clarence.
Average noise level (dBA)
Milesburg's 57.4 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Pennsylvania as a whole averages 52.9 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Milesburg because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 49.3% of Milesburg residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's more than any of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 47.1% of Milesburg's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Pennsylvania average of 33.5% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Milesburg
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 Z H Confair Memorial Hw 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 23% of Milesburg is under tree cover (about average for cities), 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.
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.
