Noise Levels in Ten Hills, Somerville, MA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
62 dBA
Average noise across Ten Hills
Busy restaurant
3,340
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
97% of Ten Hills residents
84 dBA
Loudest residential point
Food blender at arm’s length
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Ten Hills 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 3,340 Ten Hills residents, or 96.6%, live above that level. By land area, 94.7% of Ten Hills is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Ten Hills residents, grouped by direction from the center of Ten Hills. Central Ten Hills carries the highest population-weighted average; Southern Ten Hills carries the lowest. Just 100% of residents in Southern Ten Hills live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, roughly the same as the share in Central Ten Hills.
Central Ten Hills
62.4 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
96% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Ten Hills
60.0 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Ten Hills
57.9 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Central Ten Hills sounds about 37% louder than Southern Ten Hills to the human ear, a 4.5 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 I-93 do you need to be?
I-93 produces an estimated 78 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
78 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
64 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
56 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
48 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
40 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 12% of Ten Hills sits under tree canopy (about average for 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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Airport Noise
General Edward Lawrence Logan International (BOS) sits southeast of Ten Hills. 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 Ten Hills, particularly to the northwest, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Ten Hills
The bar chart below shows the share of Ten Hills residents in each noise band. About 0% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 60% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Ten Hills Compares
Ten Hills sits at the louder end of the spectrum. Below: how Ten Hills's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with East Somerville, Waterfront, Wedgemere Historic District, and Tufts.
Average noise level (dBA)
Ten Hills's 62.0 dBA pop-weighted average is at the louder end of the spectrum. Massachusetts as a whole averages 54.3 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Ten Hills because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 96.6% of Ten Hills 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, 94.7% of Ten Hills'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 Ten Hills
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 I-93 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 12% of Ten Hills is under tree cover (about average for 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 southeast. Neighborhoods to the northwest 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.
