Noise Levels in South End, Boston, MA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
62 dBA
Average noise across South End
Busy restaurant
21,456
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
95% of South End residents
81 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across South End 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 21,456 South End residents, or 94.9%, live above that level. By land area, 95.7% of South End is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for South End residents, grouped by direction from the center of South End. Eastern South End carries the highest population-weighted average; Central South End carries the lowest. Just 91% of residents in Central South End live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, roughly the same as the share in Eastern South End.
Central South End
60.7 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
91% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern South End
65.3 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern South End
64.3 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern South End
60.9 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
88% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western South End
61.2 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern South End sounds about 38% louder than Central South End to the human ear, a 4.6 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 81 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
81 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
49 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
41 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 3% of South End sits under tree canopy (much lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 75% 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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Rail Noise
Active freight rail runs through parts of South End. 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
General Edward Lawrence Logan International (BOS) sits northeast of South End. 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 45 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of South End, particularly to the southwest, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across South End
The bar chart below shows the share of South End residents in each noise band. About 2% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 62% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How South End Compares
South End sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how South End's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with North Dorchester, East Boston, Fenway-Kenmore, and Back Bay.
Average noise level (dBA)
South End's 62.0 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Massachusetts as a whole averages 54.3 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than South End because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 94.9% of South End 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, 95.7% of South End's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Massachusetts average of 40.0% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to South End
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 3% of South End is under tree cover (much 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. General Edward Lawrence Logan International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the northeast. Neighborhoods to the southwest 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.
