Noise Levels in Shannon Park, Charlotte, NC | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
51 dBA
Average noise across Shannon Park
Quiet office
1,263
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
17% of Shannon Park residents
64 dBA
Loudest residential point
Busy restaurant
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Shannon Park 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 1,263 Shannon Park residents, or 17.3%, live above that level. By land area, 17.5% of Shannon Park is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Shannon Park residents, grouped by direction from the center of Shannon Park. Southern Shannon Park carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Shannon Park carries the lowest. Just 18% of residents in Western Shannon Park live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, roughly the same as the share in Southern Shannon Park.
Central Shannon Park
49.9 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
14% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Shannon Park
51.5 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
16% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Shannon Park
50.3 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
17% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Shannon Park
52.2 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
20% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Shannon Park
49.7 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
18% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Shannon Park sounds about 19% louder than Western Shannon Park to the human ear, a 2.5 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 64 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
64 dBA
Busy restaurant
165 ft
52 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
330 ft
45 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
660 ft
39 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 48% of Shannon Park sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most neighborhoods) and roughly 29% 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
Charlotte/Douglas International (CLT) sits west of Shannon Park. 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 Shannon Park, particularly to the east, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Shannon Park
The bar chart below shows the share of Shannon Park residents in each noise band. About 95% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 1% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Shannon Park Compares
Shannon Park sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Shannon Park's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with North Sharon Amity, Oak Forest, Plaza-Eastway, and University City South.
Average noise level (dBA)
Shannon Park's 50.8 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. North Carolina as a whole averages 49.7 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Shannon Park because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 17.3% of Shannon Park 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, 17.5% of Shannon Park's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a North Carolina average of 22.6% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Shannon Park
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 48% of Shannon Park 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. Charlotte/Douglas International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the west. Neighborhoods to the east 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.
