Noise Levels in Park Place, Norfolk, VA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
59 dBA
Average noise across Park Place
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
2,532
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
85% of Park Place residents
83 dBA
Loudest residential point
Food blender at arm’s length
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Park Place 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 2,532 Park Place residents, or 84.7%, live above that level. By land area, 89.9% of Park Place is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Park Place residents, grouped by direction from the center of Park Place. Western Park Place carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Park Place carries the lowest. Just 100% of residents in Northern Park Place live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, roughly the same as the share in Western Park Place.
Central Park Place
58.9 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
80% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Park Place
59.1 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
90% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Park Place
56.6 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Park Place
59.5 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
89% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Park Place
60.5 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
96% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Park Place sounds about 31% louder than Northern Park Place to the human ear, a 3.9 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 Omohundro Ave do you need to be?
Omohundro Ave produces an estimated 56 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
56 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
165 ft
43 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
330 ft
36 dBA
Soft rainfall
660 ft
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 17% of Park Place sits under tree canopy (about average for neighborhoods) and roughly 60% 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 Park Place. 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
Norfolk International (ORF) sits east of Park Place. 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 65 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Park Place, 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 Park Place
The bar chart below shows the share of Park Place residents in each noise band. About 14% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 36% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Park Place Compares
Park Place sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Park Place's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Ghent, Highland Park, North Meadow Brook, and Roosevelt Gardens Area.
Average noise level (dBA)
Park Place's 59.1 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Virginia as a whole averages 52.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Park Place because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 84.7% of Park Place 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, 89.9% of Park Place's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Virginia average of 30.0% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Park Place
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 Omohundro Ave 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 17% of Park Place is under tree cover (about average for 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. Norfolk 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.
