Noise Levels in South Ponte Vedra Beach, FL | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

44 dBA

Average noise across South Ponte Vedra Beach

Quiet suburban street at night

110

Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold

18% of South Ponte Vedra Beach residents

68 dBA

Loudest residential point

Highway traffic 50 ft away

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across South Ponte Vedra Beach 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

South Ponte Vedra Beach, FL Map of Noise Levels in South Ponte Vedra Beach

35 45 55 70 90

Quietest (dBA) Loudest

Colorblind friendly off

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 110 South Ponte Vedra Beach residents, or 18.4%, live above that level. By land area, 13.5% of South Ponte Vedra Beach is above 55 dBA.

86.5% below 55 dBA

13.5% above 55 dBA

See how noise in South Ponte Vedra Beach compares to similar-sized cities.

Southern South Ponte Vedra Beach sounds about 0% louder than Northern South Ponte Vedra Beach to the human ear, a 0.0 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 Noise Is Distributed Across South Ponte Vedra Beach

The bar chart below shows the share of South Ponte Vedra Beach residents in each noise band. About 84% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 16% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How South Ponte Vedra Beach Compares

South Ponte Vedra Beach sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how South Ponte Vedra Beach's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Sherwood Forest, Walkill, Vilano Beach, and Bardin.

Average noise level (dBA)

South Ponte Vedra Beach's 44.5 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Florida as a whole averages 51.6 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than South Ponte Vedra Beach because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 18.4% of South Ponte Vedra Beach 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, 13.5% of South Ponte Vedra Beach's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Florida average of 31.8% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to South Ponte Vedra Beach

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 South Ponte Vedra Beach is under tree cover (about average for cities), and the dominant land cover is evergreen forest. 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.

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.

Federal datasets used:

FHWA Highway Performance Monitoring System: road geometry, traffic counts, lane configuration
U.S. DoT Bureau of Transportation Statistics National Transportation Noise Map: aviation and rail noise, road calibration ground truth
USGS / MRLC National Land Cover Database: land cover and impervious surface coverage
USDA Forest Service Tree Canopy Cover: vegetation density for sound propagation
U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line: block-level geography and population
U.S. EPA Levels Document: 55 dBA outdoor reference level

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.