Noise Levels in Morris Heights, Aurora, CO | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
51 dBA
Average noise across Morris Heights
Quiet office to normal conversation
1,416
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
33% of Morris Heights residents
82 dBA
Loudest residential point
Food blender at arm’s length
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Morris 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 1,416 Morris Heights residents, or 33.3%, live above that level. By land area, 39.4% of Morris Heights is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Morris Heights residents, grouped by direction from the center of Morris Heights. Eastern Morris Heights carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Morris Heights carries the lowest. Just 8% of residents in Western Morris Heights live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Eastern Morris Heights.
Central Morris Heights
52.7 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
22% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Morris Heights
59.2 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
81% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Morris Heights
50.8 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
0% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Morris Heights
51.8 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
25% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Morris Heights
41.2 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night
8% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Morris Heights sounds about 248% louder than Western Morris Heights to the human ear, a 18.0 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 I-225 do you need to be?
I-225 produces an estimated 78 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
78 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
65 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
58 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
51 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
44 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
½ mile
37 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 4% of Morris Heights sits under tree canopy (much lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 42% 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 Morris Heights. 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.
Airport Noise
Denver International (DEN) sits northeast of Morris Heights. 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 Morris 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 Morris Heights
The bar chart below shows the share of Morris Heights residents in each noise band. About 67% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 11% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Morris Heights Compares
Morris Heights sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Morris Heights's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Chambers Heights, Tower Triangle, Sableridge, and Elyria Swansea.
Average noise level (dBA)
Morris Heights's 51.4 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. Colorado as a whole averages 51.9 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Morris Heights because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 33.3% of Morris Heights 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, 39.4% of Morris Heights's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Colorado average of 25.4% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Morris 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 I-225 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 4% of Morris Heights is under tree cover (much lighter 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. Denver International'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.
