Noise Levels in Wicker Park, Chicago, IL | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
55 dBA
Average noise across Wicker Park
Quiet office to normal conversation
4,995
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
45% of Wicker Park residents
68 dBA
Loudest residential point
Highway traffic 50 ft away
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Wicker Park 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 4,995 Wicker Park residents, or 45.4%, live above that level. By land area, 46.0% of Wicker Park is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Wicker Park residents, grouped by direction from the center of Wicker Park. Northern Wicker Park carries the highest population-weighted average; Southern Wicker Park carries the lowest. Just 4% of residents in Southern Wicker Park live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Northern Wicker Park.
Central Wicker Park
54.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
43% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Wicker Park
55.7 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
49% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Wicker Park
57.8 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
68% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Wicker Park
52.0 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
4% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Wicker Park
57.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
67% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Wicker Park sounds about 49% louder than Southern Wicker Park to the human ear, a 5.8 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 68 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
68 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
165 ft
54 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
330 ft
46 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
660 ft
38 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 2% of Wicker Park sits under tree canopy (much lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 77% 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 Wicker Park. 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
Chicago Midway International (MDW) sits southwest of Wicker Park. 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 Wicker Park, particularly to the northeast, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Wicker Park
The bar chart below shows the share of Wicker Park residents in each noise band. About 54% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 12% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Wicker Park Compares
Wicker Park sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Wicker Park's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Ukrainian Village, Hermosa, Whiskey Point, and East Garfield Park.
Average noise level (dBA)
Wicker Park's 55.2 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Illinois as a whole averages 52.6 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Wicker Park because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 45.4% of Wicker Park 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, 46.0% of Wicker Park's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Illinois average of 29.2% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Wicker Park
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 2% of Wicker Park is under tree cover (much lighter 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. Chicago Midway International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the southwest. Neighborhoods to the northeast 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.
