This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Upper Black Eddy 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.
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 97 Upper Black Eddy residents, or 3.6%, live above that level. By land area, 5.4% of Upper Black Eddy is above 55 dBA.
See how noise in Upper Black Eddy compares to similar-sized cities.
Noise by Part of Upper Black Eddy
Average noise levels for Upper Black Eddy residents, grouped by direction from the center of Upper Black Eddy. Western Upper Black Eddy carries the highest population-weighted average; Central Upper Black Eddy carries the lowest. Just 1% of residents in Central Upper Black Eddy live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a third of the share in Western Upper Black Eddy.
Central Upper Black Eddy
1% of people above 55 dBA
Eastern Upper Black Eddy
3% of people above 55 dBA
Northern Upper Black Eddy
4% of people above 55 dBA
Southern Upper Black Eddy
5% of people above 55 dBA
Western Upper Black Eddy
3% of people above 55 dBA
Western Upper Black Eddy sounds about 55% louder than Central Upper Black Eddy to the human ear, a 6.3 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.
Loudest Road Corridors
The model evaluates every road in Upper Black Eddy using federal traffic counts, posted speeds, heavy-truck ratios, and pavement type. The source level shown is the modeled noise at the road centerline, where it is loudest. Noise drops with distance, faster in vegetated areas and slower over open pavement.
How far back from Bbm6 Kintner Hill Rd do you need to be?
Bbm6 Kintner Hill Rd produces an estimated 58 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.
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 68% of Upper Black Eddy sits under tree canopy (much heavier than most cities) and roughly 2% 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.
Rail Noise
Active freight rail runs through parts of Upper Black Eddy. 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 Upper Black Eddy
The bar chart below shows the share of Upper Black Eddy residents in each noise band. About 99% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 0% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Upper Black Eddy Compares
Upper Black Eddy sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Upper Black Eddy's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Riegelsville, Ottsville, Kintnersville, and New Britain.
Average noise level (dBA)
Upper Black Eddy's 43.5 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 Upper Black Eddy because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 3.6% of Upper Black Eddy 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, 5.4% of Upper Black Eddy'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 Upper Black Eddy
- 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 Bbm6 Kintner Hill Rd 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 68% of Upper Black Eddy is under tree cover (much heavier than most cities), and the dominant land cover is deciduous forest. 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.
Federal datasets used:
FHWA Highway Performance Monitoring System: road geometry, traffic counts, lane configuration
U.S. DoT Bureau of Transportation Statistics National Transportation Noise Map: aviation and rail noise, road calibration ground truth
USGS / MRLC National Land Cover Database: land cover and impervious surface coverage
USDA Forest Service Tree Canopy Cover: vegetation density for sound propagation
U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line: block-level geography and population
U.S. EPA Levels Document: 55 dBA outdoor reference level
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.