Noise Levels in Saint Edwards, Austin, TX | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
60 dBA
Average noise across Saint Edwards
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
1,927
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
48% of Saint Edwards residents
78 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Saint Edwards 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 1,927 Saint Edwards residents, or 47.8%, live above that level. By land area, 48.4% of Saint Edwards is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Saint Edwards residents, grouped by direction from the center of Saint Edwards. Southern Saint Edwards carries the highest population-weighted average; Central Saint Edwards carries the lowest. Just 13% of residents in Central Saint Edwards live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Southern Saint Edwards.
Central Saint Edwards
48.7 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
13% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Saint Edwards
70.2 dBA · Loud
Highway traffic 50 ft away
82% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Saint Edwards
51.4 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
34% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Saint Edwards
70.6 dBA · Loud
Highway traffic 50 ft away
71% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Saint Edwards
60.0 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
51% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Saint Edwards sounds about 356% louder than Central Saint Edwards to the human ear, a 21.9 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 US Hwy 290 do you need to be?
US Hwy 290 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
60 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
53 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
¼ mile
46 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
½ mile
39 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 5% of Saint Edwards sits under tree canopy (lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 45% 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
Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) sits southeast of Saint Edwards. 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 Saint Edwards, 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 Saint Edwards
The bar chart below shows the share of Saint Edwards residents in each noise band. About 47% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 50% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Saint Edwards Compares
Saint Edwards sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Saint Edwards's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Bouldin, South Manchaca, South River City, and Pecan Springs Springdale.
Average noise level (dBA)
Saint Edwards's 59.5 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Saint Edwards because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 47.8% of Saint Edwards 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, 48.4% of Saint Edwards'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 Saint Edwards
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 US Hwy 290 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 5% of Saint Edwards is under tree cover (lighter 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. Austin-Bergstrom 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.
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.
