Noise Levels in North Whisman, Mountain View, CA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
58 dBA
Average noise across North Whisman
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
3,602
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
58% of North Whisman residents
82 dBA
Loudest residential point
Food blender at arm’s length
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across North Whisman 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 3,602 North Whisman residents, or 58.2%, live above that level. By land area, 64.0% of North Whisman is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for North Whisman residents, grouped by direction from the center of North Whisman. Northern North Whisman carries the highest population-weighted average; Central North Whisman carries the lowest. Just 55% of residents in Central North Whisman live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, three-quarters of the share in Northern North Whisman.
Central North Whisman
55.6 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
55% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern North Whisman
56.8 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
55% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern North Whisman
68.7 dBA · Loud
Highway traffic 50 ft away
73% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern North Whisman
59.5 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
58% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western North Whisman
63.5 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
81% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern North Whisman sounds about 148% louder than Central North Whisman to the human ear, a 13.1 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 Bayshore Fwy do you need to be?
Bayshore Fwy 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 soft rainfall.
At source
78 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
64 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
56 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
48 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
40 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 9% of North Whisman sits under tree canopy (lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 57% 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 North Whisman. 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
Norman Y Mineta San Jose International (SJC) sits east of North Whisman. 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 North Whisman, particularly to the west, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across North Whisman
The bar chart below shows the share of North Whisman residents in each noise band. About 35% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 23% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How North Whisman Compares
North Whisman sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how North Whisman's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Old Mountain View, Shoreline West, Stanford University, and Lakewood.
Average noise level (dBA)
North Whisman's 57.9 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. California as a whole averages 54.0 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than North Whisman because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 58.2% of North Whisman 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, 64.0% of North Whisman's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a California average of 36.0% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to North Whisman
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 Bayshore Fwy 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 9% of North Whisman is under tree cover (lighter than most neighborhoods), and the dominant land cover is medium-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. Norman Y Mineta San Jose International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the east. Neighborhoods to the west 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.
