Noise Levels in The Hill Section, Scranton, PA | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
58 dBA
Average noise across The Hill Section
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
3,483
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
79% of The Hill Section residents
78 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across The Hill Section 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 3,483 The Hill Section residents, or 78.7%, live above that level. By land area, 83.0% of The Hill Section is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for The Hill Section residents, grouped by direction from the center of The Hill Section. Southern The Hill Section carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern The Hill Section carries the lowest. Just 58% of residents in Northern The Hill Section live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about two-thirds of the share in Southern The Hill Section.
Central The Hill Section
58.1 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
81% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern The Hill Section
59.9 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern The Hill Section
55.8 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
58% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern The Hill Section
60.5 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
97% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western The Hill Section
57.9 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
69% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern The Hill Section sounds about 39% louder than Northern The Hill Section to the human ear, a 4.7 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 do you need to be?
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
65 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
57 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
49 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
41 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 22% of The Hill Section sits under tree canopy (heavier than most neighborhoods) and roughly 57% 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 The Hill Section. 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 The Hill Section
The bar chart below shows the share of The Hill Section residents in each noise band. About 12% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 39% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How The Hill Section Compares
The Hill Section sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how The Hill Section's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Downtown, South Side, The Plot, and Providence.
Average noise level (dBA)
The Hill Section's 58.1 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 The Hill Section because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 78.7% of The Hill Section 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, 83.0% of The Hill Section'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 The Hill Section
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 22% of The Hill Section 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.
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.
