Noise Levels in Santa Clara Street, Hayward, CA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
63 dBA
Average noise across Santa Clara Street
Busy restaurant
6,154
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
78% of Santa Clara Street residents
82 dBA
Loudest residential point
Food blender at arm’s length
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Santa Clara Street 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 6,154 Santa Clara Street residents, or 78.1%, live above that level. By land area, 87.0% of Santa Clara Street is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Santa Clara Street residents, grouped by direction from the center of Santa Clara Street. Central Santa Clara Street carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Santa Clara Street carries the lowest. Just 40% of residents in Eastern Santa Clara Street live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Central Santa Clara Street.
Central Santa Clara Street
66.3 dBA · Loud
Highway traffic 50 ft away
88% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Santa Clara Street
58.0 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
40% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Santa Clara Street
64.6 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
95% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Santa Clara Street
60.3 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
71% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Santa Clara Street
66.1 dBA · Loud
Highway traffic 50 ft away
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Central Santa Clara Street sounds about 78% louder than Eastern Santa Clara Street to the human ear, a 8.3 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 Nimitz Fwy do you need to be?
Nimitz Fwy 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
66 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
330 ft
58 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
50 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
43 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 5% of Santa Clara Street sits under tree canopy (lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 62% 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.
-->
Rail Noise
Active freight rail runs through parts of Santa Clara Street. 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
San Francisco Bay Oakland International (OAK) sits northwest of Santa Clara Street. 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 Santa Clara Street, 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 Santa Clara Street
The bar chart below shows the share of Santa Clara Street residents in each noise band. About 0% 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 Santa Clara Street Compares
Santa Clara Street sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Santa Clara Street's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Upper B Street, Mission-Foothill, Burbank-Hayward, and Mt Eden.
Average noise level (dBA)
Santa Clara Street's 63.0 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. California as a whole averages 54.0 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Santa Clara Street because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 78.1% of Santa Clara Street 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, 87.0% of Santa Clara Street's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a California average of 36.0% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Santa Clara Street
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 Nimitz Fwy 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 Santa Clara Street is under tree cover (lighter than most neighborhoods), and the dominant land cover is medium-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. San Francisco Bay Oakland 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.
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.
