Noise Levels in Oak Park-Northwood, San Antonio, TX | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
55 dBA
Average noise across Oak Park-Northwood
Quiet office to normal conversation
3,824
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
55% of Oak Park-Northwood residents
70 dBA
Loudest residential point
Highway traffic 50 ft away
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Oak Park-Northwood 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 3,824 Oak Park-Northwood residents, or 54.8%, live above that level. By land area, 58.8% of Oak Park-Northwood is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Oak Park-Northwood residents, grouped by direction from the center of Oak Park-Northwood. Northern Oak Park-Northwood carries the highest population-weighted average; Southern Oak Park-Northwood carries the lowest. Just 37% of residents in Southern Oak Park-Northwood live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Northern Oak Park-Northwood.
Central Oak Park-Northwood
54.6 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
70% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Oak Park-Northwood
55.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
61% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Oak Park-Northwood
58.9 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
89% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Oak Park-Northwood
52.2 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
37% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Oak Park-Northwood
52.2 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
31% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Oak Park-Northwood sounds about 59% louder than Southern Oak Park-Northwood to the human ear, a 6.7 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-410 do you need to be?
I-410 produces an estimated 80 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
80 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
67 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
330 ft
59 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
52 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
¼ mile
44 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
½ mile
37 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 18% of Oak Park-Northwood sits under tree canopy (about average for neighborhoods) and roughly 34% 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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Airport Noise
San Antonio International (SAT) sits northwest of Oak Park-Northwood. 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 Oak Park-Northwood, particularly to the southeast, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Oak Park-Northwood
The bar chart below shows the share of Oak Park-Northwood residents in each noise band. About 48% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 10% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Oak Park-Northwood Compares
Oak Park-Northwood sits at the louder end of the spectrum. Below: how Oak Park-Northwood's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Shearer Hills-Ridgeview, Prospect Hill, Dellview Area, and Greater Harmony Hills.
Average noise level (dBA)
Oak Park-Northwood's 54.6 dBA pop-weighted average is at the louder end of the spectrum. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Oak Park-Northwood because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 54.8% of Oak Park-Northwood 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, 58.8% of Oak Park-Northwood's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Texas average of 22.8% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Oak Park-Northwood
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-410 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 18% of Oak Park-Northwood is under tree cover (about average for 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. San Antonio International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the northwest. Neighborhoods to the southeast 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.
