Noise Levels in Red Rock, TX | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

41 dBA
Average noise across Red Rock
Quiet suburban street at night
78
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
2% of Red Rock residents
89 dBA
Loudest residential point
Lawnmower at 1 m

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Red Rock 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
Red Rock, TX Map of Noise Levels in Red Rock
Click the map to explore
35 45 55 70 90
Quietest (dBA) Loudest
Colorblind friendly off

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 78 Red Rock residents, or 2.4%, live above that level. By land area, 4.3% of Red Rock is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in Red Rock compares to similar-sized cities.

Noise by Part of Red Rock

Average noise levels for Red Rock residents, grouped by direction from the center of Red Rock. Western Red Rock carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Red Rock carries the lowest. Just 0% of residents in Northern Red Rock live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Western Red Rock.

Eastern Red Rock

39.4 dBA · Quiet
Soft rainfall

1% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern Red Rock

38.1 dBA · Quiet
Soft rainfall

0% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Red Rock

40.9 dBA · Quiet
Soft rainfall

0% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Red Rock

43.5 dBA · Quiet
Quiet suburban street at night

5% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Red Rock sounds about 45% louder than Northern Red Rock to the human ear, a 5.4 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 do you need to be?

produces an estimated 89 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 office to normal conversation.

At source
89 dBA
Lawnmower at 1 m
165 ft
76 dBA
City bus interior
330 ft
69 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
660 ft
61 dBA
Busy restaurant
¼ mile
54 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
½ mile
46 dBA
Quiet office

Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 17% of Red Rock sits under tree canopy (lighter than most cities) and roughly 2% 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 Red Rock. 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

Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) sits northwest of Red Rock. 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 Red Rock, 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 Red Rock

The bar chart below shows the share of Red Rock residents in each noise band. About 95% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 3% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How Red Rock Compares

Red Rock sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Red Rock's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Lytton Springs, Elroy, Utley, and Paige.

Average noise level (dBA)

Red Rock's 41.1 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Red Rock because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 2.4% of Red Rock 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, 4.3% of Red Rock'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 Red Rock

  • 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 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 Red Rock is under tree cover (lighter than most cities), and the dominant land cover is pasture / hay. 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. Austin-Bergstrom 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.

Federal datasets used:

FHWA Highway Performance Monitoring System: road geometry, traffic counts, lane configuration
U.S. DoT Bureau of Transportation Statistics National Transportation Noise Map: aviation and rail noise, road calibration ground truth
USGS / MRLC National Land Cover Database: land cover and impervious surface coverage
USDA Forest Service Tree Canopy Cover: vegetation density for sound propagation
U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line: block-level geography and population
U.S. EPA Levels Document: 55 dBA outdoor reference level

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.