Noise Levels in Swissvale, PA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
57 dBA
Average noise across Swissvale
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
3,975
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
65% of Swissvale residents
80 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Swissvale 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 3,975 Swissvale residents, or 65.2%, live above that level. By land area, 69.3% of Swissvale is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Swissvale residents, grouped by direction from the center of Swissvale. Southern Swissvale carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Swissvale carries the lowest. Just 39% of residents in Eastern Swissvale live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about two-thirds of the share in Southern Swissvale.
Central Swissvale
58.7 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
78% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Swissvale
53.9 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
39% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Swissvale
58.4 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
87% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Swissvale
59.4 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
77% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Swissvale
58.0 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
66% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Swissvale sounds about 46% louder than Eastern Swissvale to the human ear, a 5.5 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 H053 Braddock Av do you need to be?
H053 Braddock Av 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
50 dBA
Quiet office
330 ft
43 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
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 19% of Swissvale sits under tree canopy (lighter than most cities) and roughly 53% 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 Swissvale. 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.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Swissvale
The bar chart below shows the share of Swissvale residents in each noise band. About 20% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 22% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Swissvale Compares
Swissvale sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Swissvale's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Forest Hills, Turtle Creek, White Oak, and Oakmont.
Average noise level (dBA)
Swissvale's 57.3 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Pennsylvania as a whole averages 52.9 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Swissvale because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 65.2% of Swissvale 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, 69.3% of Swissvale'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 Swissvale
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 H053 Braddock Av 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 19% of Swissvale is under tree cover (lighter than most cities), 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.
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.
