Noise Levels in Seven Bar Ranch, Albuquerque, NM | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
56 dBA
Average noise across Seven Bar Ranch
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
1,478
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
32% of Seven Bar Ranch residents
72 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Seven Bar Ranch 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 1,478 Seven Bar Ranch residents, or 32.2%, live above that level. By land area, 30.0% of Seven Bar Ranch is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Seven Bar Ranch residents, grouped by direction from the center of Seven Bar Ranch. Central Seven Bar Ranch carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Seven Bar Ranch carries the lowest. Just 29% of residents in Eastern Seven Bar Ranch live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, three-quarters of the share in Central Seven Bar Ranch.
Central Seven Bar Ranch
60.5 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
37% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Seven Bar Ranch
52.6 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
29% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Seven Bar Ranch
53.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
26% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Seven Bar Ranch
56.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
26% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Seven Bar Ranch
54.8 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
36% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Central Seven Bar Ranch sounds about 73% louder than Eastern Seven Bar Ranch to the human ear, a 7.9 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 do you need to be?
produces an estimated 72 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
72 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
58 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
330 ft
50 dBA
Quiet office
660 ft
42 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 9% of Seven Bar Ranch sits under tree canopy (lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 60% 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
Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) sits south of Seven Bar Ranch. 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 65 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Seven Bar Ranch, particularly to the north, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Seven Bar Ranch
The bar chart below shows the share of Seven Bar Ranch residents in each noise band. About 55% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 32% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Seven Bar Ranch Compares
Seven Bar Ranch sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Seven Bar Ranch's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Skies West, Rio Grande, Alban Hills, and North Wyoming.
Average noise level (dBA)
Seven Bar Ranch's 56.4 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. New Mexico as a whole averages 51.0 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Seven Bar Ranch because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 32.2% of Seven Bar Ranch 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, 30.0% of Seven Bar Ranch's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a New Mexico average of 19.5% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Seven Bar Ranch
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 9% of Seven Bar Ranch 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. Albuquerque International Sunport's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the south. Neighborhoods to the north 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.
