Noise Levels in Salt Springs, Syracuse, NY | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
54 dBA
Average noise across Salt Springs
Quiet office to normal conversation
1,986
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
33% of Salt Springs residents
79 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Salt Springs 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 1,986 Salt Springs residents, or 32.9%, live above that level. By land area, 49.6% of Salt Springs is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Salt Springs residents, grouped by direction from the center of Salt Springs. Northern Salt Springs carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Salt Springs carries the lowest. Just 23% of residents in Eastern Salt Springs live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a third of the share in Northern Salt Springs.
Central Salt Springs
53.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
28% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Salt Springs
51.7 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
23% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Salt Springs
65.0 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
96% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Salt Springs
55.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
43% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Salt Springs sounds about 151% louder than Eastern Salt Springs to the human ear, a 13.3 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 79 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
79 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
65 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
57 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
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 38% of Salt Springs sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most neighborhoods) and roughly 38% 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
Syracuse Hancock International (SYR) sits north of Salt Springs. 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 55 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Salt Springs, particularly to the south, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Salt Springs
The bar chart below shows the share of Salt Springs residents in each noise band. About 67% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 5% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Salt Springs Compares
Salt Springs sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Salt Springs's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Outer Comstock, Brighton, University Hill, and North Valley.
Average noise level (dBA)
Salt Springs's 53.6 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. New York as a whole averages 55.4 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Salt Springs because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 32.9% of Salt Springs 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, 49.6% of Salt Springs's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a New York average of 30.9% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Salt Springs
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 38% of Salt Springs 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. Syracuse Hancock International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the north. Neighborhoods to the south 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.
