Noise Levels in Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs, Bothell, WA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
56 dBA
Average noise across Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs
Quiet office to normal conversation
1,359
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
41% of Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs residents
80 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs 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 1,359 Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs residents, or 41.4%, live above that level. By land area, 46.8% of Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs is above 55 dBA.
Noise by Part of Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs
Average noise levels for Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs residents, grouped by direction from the center of Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs. Northern Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs carries the lowest. Just 20% of residents in Western Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a third of the share in Northern Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs.
Central Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs
54.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
30% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs
60.5 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
78% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs
62.5 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
75% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs
56.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
39% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs
52.3 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
20% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs sounds about 103% louder than Western Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs to the human ear, a 10.2 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-405 do you need to be?
I-405 produces an estimated 77 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
77 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
63 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 42% of Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most neighborhoods) and roughly 39% 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
Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) sits south of Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs. 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 Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs, particularly to the north, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs
The bar chart below shows the share of Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs residents in each noise band. About 54% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 14% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs Compares
Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Canyon Creek-39th SE, Canyon Park, Wedge, and Avondale.
Average noise level (dBA)
Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs's 56.0 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Washington as a whole averages 51.3 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 41.4% of Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs 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, 46.8% of Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Washington average of 27.7% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs
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-405 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 42% of Queensboro-Brentwood-Crystal Spgs is under tree cover (much heavier 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. Seattle-Tacoma International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the south. Neighborhoods to the north 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.