Noise Levels in South Roxana, IL | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
52 dBA
Average noise across South Roxana
Quiet office to normal conversation
425
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
23% of South Roxana residents
80 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across South Roxana 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 425 South Roxana residents, or 23.2%, live above that level. By land area, 24.1% of South Roxana is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for South Roxana residents, grouped by direction from the center of South Roxana. Eastern South Roxana carries the highest population-weighted average; Southern South Roxana carries the lowest. Just 20% of residents in Southern South Roxana live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, three-quarters of the share in Eastern South Roxana.
Central South Roxana
53.2 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
33% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern South Roxana
55.2 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
26% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern South Roxana
50.5 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
0% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern South Roxana
50.2 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
20% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western South Roxana
50.3 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
6% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern South Roxana sounds about 41% louder than Southern South Roxana to the human ear, a 5.0 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 far back from Madison Ave do you need to be?
Madison Ave produces an estimated 57 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
57 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
165 ft
43 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
330 ft
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
660 ft
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 14% of South Roxana sits under tree canopy (lighter than most cities) and roughly 31% 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 Roxana. 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
St Louis Lambert International (STL) sits west of South Roxana. 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 South Roxana, 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 South Roxana
The bar chart below shows the share of South Roxana residents in each noise band. About 78% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 6% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How South Roxana Compares
South Roxana sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how South Roxana's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Roxana, Moro, Kuhn Station, and Fairmont City.
Average noise level (dBA)
South Roxana's 52.1 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Illinois as a whole averages 52.6 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than South Roxana because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 23.2% of South Roxana 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, 24.1% of South Roxana's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Illinois average of 29.2% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to South Roxana
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 Madison Ave 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 14% of South Roxana is under tree cover (lighter than most cities), and the dominant land cover is low-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. St Louis Lambert 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.
