How loud is my street?

All 12,137 US towns and cities this covers. Start typing.

The federal government tracks 24-hour average transportation noise, road, rail and aircraft combined, for 12,137 US towns and cities, the same data DOT uses to plan highway sound walls and airport insulation programs. See where your town falls against HUD's own noise-acceptability line, and which mode is actually driving the number. Free, no email.

What the numbers actually sound like

A dB(A) reading on its own doesn't mean much until it's next to something familiar. Here's roughly where each of BTS's seven bands lands:

Below 45quieter than the map even tries to classify, a quiet bedroom at night
45-50a residential street after dark
50-55a quiet home office or light daytime traffic
55-60a running dishwasher, one room away
60-70normal conversation at a few feet, per CDC's own reference figure
70-80a vacuum cleaner, or standing next to a busy street
80-90close to NIOSH's 85 dB(A) limit for eight hours of workplace exposure before hearing damage is a real risk
Above 90a motorcycle at close range or heavy power equipment

Where HUD draws the legal line

HUD zone	24-hour average	What it means
Acceptable	65 dB(A) or below	No extra sound attenuation required under 24 CFR 51.104
Normally Unacceptable	65-75 dB(A)	5-10 dB of added attenuation required for federally assisted housing
Unacceptable	Above 75 dB(A)	The most severe category HUD's own rules recognize

What an answer looks like

Normally Unacceptable to Unacceptable

75dB(A), 24-hr average

Baltimore, MD. BTS only publishes Baltimore, MD in the 70-79.9 dB(A) band, which straddles HUD's own dividing line: depending on exactly where in that range the true 24-hour average falls, this reads as "Normally Unacceptable" (65-75 dB(A)) or "Unacceptable" (above 75 dB(A)) under 24 CFR 51.104.

75 dBRoad
47.5 dBRail
n/aAviation

See the full Baltimore, MD page

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Where the number comes from

Every reading here is derived from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics' National Transportation Noise Map, a 24-hour average sound level combining road, rail and aircraft noise, the same federal model used to plan highway sound walls and airport insulation programs. It's a modeled estimate for the place, not a site-specific measurement, a resident survey, or a crowdsourced guess.

One number, three sources

BTS scores road, rail and aircraft noise separately before combining them, so NoiseLevelCheck shows which one is actually driving a place's number, because that's what decides whether upgraded windows help or a different kind of fix is needed.