Noise Levels in Rosebank, Nashville, TN | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

51 dBA
Average noise across Rosebank
Quiet office to normal conversation
519
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
17% of Rosebank residents
77 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Rosebank 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
Rosebank, Nashville, TN Map of Noise Levels in Rosebank
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 519 Rosebank residents, or 17.1%, live above that level. By land area, 19.3% of Rosebank is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in Rosebank compares to similar-sized neighborhoods.

Noise by Part of Rosebank

Average noise levels for Rosebank residents, grouped by direction from the center of Rosebank. Northern Rosebank carries the highest population-weighted average; Central Rosebank carries the lowest. Just 22% of residents in Central Rosebank live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, roughly the same as the share in Northern Rosebank.

Central Rosebank

50.9 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office

22% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern Rosebank

50.9 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office

6% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern Rosebank

52.1 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation

23% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Rosebank

51.9 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation

6% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Rosebank

51.1 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation

22% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern Rosebank sounds about 9% louder than Central Rosebank to the human ear, a 1.2 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 D900 do you need to be?

D900 produces an estimated 55 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
55 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
165 ft
41 dBA
Soft rainfall
330 ft
35 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 50% of Rosebank sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most neighborhoods) and roughly 15% 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 Rosebank. 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

Nashville International (BNA) sits southeast of Rosebank. 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 45 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Rosebank, particularly to the northwest, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.

How Noise Is Distributed Across Rosebank

The bar chart below shows the share of Rosebank residents in each noise band. About 96% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 0% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How Rosebank Compares

Rosebank sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Rosebank's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Historic Edgefield, Germantown, Capitol View, and The Gulch.

Average noise level (dBA)

Rosebank's 51.4 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. Tennessee as a whole averages 49.2 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Rosebank because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 17.1% of Rosebank residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's fewer than any of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 19.3% of Rosebank's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Tennessee average of 18.7% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to Rosebank

  • 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 D900 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 50% of Rosebank is under tree cover (much heavier than most neighborhoods), and the dominant land cover is low-density developed open space. 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. Nashville International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the southeast. Neighborhoods to the northwest 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.