Noise Levels in Southside Slopes, Pittsburgh, PA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
58 dBA
Average noise across Southside Slopes
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
2,164
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
68% of Southside Slopes residents
76 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Southside Slopes 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 2,164 Southside Slopes residents, or 68.3%, live above that level. By land area, 73.8% of Southside Slopes is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Southside Slopes residents, grouped by direction from the center of Southside Slopes. Western Southside Slopes carries the highest population-weighted average; Central Southside Slopes carries the lowest. Just 65% of residents in Central Southside Slopes live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, roughly the same as the share in Western Southside Slopes.
Central Southside Slopes
57.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
65% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Southside Slopes
57.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
69% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Southside Slopes
58.2 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
71% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Southside Slopes sounds about 8% louder than Central Southside Slopes to the human ear, a 1.1 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 H193 Josephine St do you need to be?
H193 Josephine St produces an estimated 54 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
54 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
165 ft
40 dBA
Soft rainfall
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 25% of Southside Slopes sits under tree canopy (heavier than most neighborhoods) and roughly 48% 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 Southside Slopes. 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
Pittsburgh International (PIT) sits west of Southside Slopes. 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 Southside Slopes, 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 Southside Slopes
The bar chart below shows the share of Southside Slopes residents in each noise band. About 12% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 19% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Southside Slopes Compares
Southside Slopes sits at the louder end of the spectrum. Below: how Southside Slopes's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with West Oakland, Westwood, Lincoln Place, and East Hills.
Average noise level (dBA)
Southside Slopes's 57.5 dBA pop-weighted average is at the louder end of the spectrum. Pennsylvania as a whole averages 52.9 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Southside Slopes because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 68.3% of Southside Slopes 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, 73.8% of Southside Slopes's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Pennsylvania average of 33.5% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Southside Slopes
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 H193 Josephine St 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 25% of Southside Slopes is under tree cover (heavier 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. Pittsburgh 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.
