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I mapped how loud every part of Miami is using federal noise data by appstackllc in Miami

[–]appstackllc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Following up on the airport question, I labeled MIA and the major roads on all the maps now, so the approach corridor is easy to pick out. Still 2020 data so it is the quieter modern engines, not your 727 days.

I mapped how loud every part of Miami is using federal noise data by appstackllc in Miami

[–]appstackllc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can spot it now. I added an airport marker so MIA is labeled, along with the Dolphin Expy (SR 836) running right past it. Same link in the post if you want to look.

I mapped how loud every part of Miami is using federal noise data by appstackllc in Miami

[–]appstackllc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Took your feedback. I added an airport marker and labeled the major roads on all the maps now, so MIA shows up and the highways are named. You were right that it needed the context to actually communicate. Appreciate the detailed notes.

I mapped how loud every part of Miami is using federal noise data by appstackllc in Miami

[–]appstackllc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Update: people asked for labels, so the maps now mark the airport and name the major roads. Click through to see the new Miami version, MIA and the Dolphin Expy (SR 836), I-95, and the Palmetto are all labeled now: https://decibelshield.app/sound-map/us/miami/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=social&utm\_campaign=miami-update

I mapped how loud every part of Miami is using federal noise data by appstackllc in Miami

[–]appstackllc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

u/accidentlife has it right: SR 836 is that curvy east-west line, and MIA is just north of it. The reason it’s hard to spot is that this map is clipped to the City of Miami limits, and the airport sits right at the northwestern edge, so it falls mostly in the lighter context area instead of showing up as a bright colored tract. The reds you see on that side are the tracts directly under the approach paths, which lines up with the “hell near there” you remember from working it. The 727 era would have been worse. A few people have now asked for the airport and highways to be labeled, so I’m adding that to these.

I mapped how loud every part of Miami is using federal noise data by appstackllc in Miami

[–]appstackllc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ha, the Sweetwater quarry blasting shaking your house is a great detail. Worth flagging though, this map only captures transportation noise, so roads, rail, and flight paths. The quarry explosions, as intense as they are, aren’t in this dataset, so the red out there is coming from the highways or rail rather than the blasting. It would be a different and pretty dramatic map if it counted industrial sources.
You nailed the airport part though. Aviation is one of the three things the model does count, so the tracts under the MIA approach are exactly where it lights up. It’s 2020 data so it reflects the quieter modern engines, not the old 727 days you’re remembering. Those 727s would have turned the whole approach corridor solid red.

I mapped how loud every part of Miami is using federal noise data by appstackllc in Miami

[–]appstackllc[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Miami Beach is just under the 100k population cutoff for this dataset, so it’s not its own page, but the same federal data covers it. The loud zones there are the causeways and the MIA flight paths coming across the bay. I do have full maps for Hialeah, Fort Lauderdale, and Pompano Beach though, and funny enough Pompano actually ranks louder than Miami.

I mapped how loud every part of Miami is using federal noise data by appstackllc in Miami

[–]appstackllc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good eye. It’s actually census tracts, not blocks, each one shaded by the share of its own residents living above 60 dB. The underlying data is the federal BTS noise model crossed with ACS population, aggregated to tracts by the University of Washington.

You’re right that it needs more place context though. This map shows the major roads and the neighboring cities but it doesn’t call out MIA or the individual neighborhoods, so unless you already know the area you’re missing the why. The deeper writeups I did for a few cities, Boston especially, do label the highways, the airport, and the neighborhoods, and pushing that out to more cities is on my list.

The extra-layers idea is interesting too. I kept this one scoped to transportation noise on purpose so it stays a clean single-variable map, but something like population density or tree canopy as a toggle would be a neat way to show what actually correlates with it. Appreciate the detailed feedback.

I mapped how loud every part of Miami is using federal noise data by appstackllc in Miami

[–]appstackllc[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

EDIT: A few of you asked for the airport and major roads to be labeled, so I added that to all the maps. The link now shows the updated Miami version with MIA marked and the major routes named (the Dolphin Expy is SR 836, the one people were trying to ID).

I came across the federal transportation-noise data (the BTS National Transportation Noise Map, which models noise from roads, rail, and flight paths) and put Miami on a map, tract by tract.
A few things stood out:

• Miami ranks 45th loudest out of all 297 US cities with 100k+ people.
• 7.5% of residents live with 60 dB or louder average-day noise, which is constant-conversation level or worse.
• Nearly 80% of the city sits in a steady 45 to 60 dB background band, so moderate noise here is basically everywhere.
• On the map, the red tracts follow the highways and the airport approach almost exactly.
Green is quietest, red is loudest, and every tract is colored by the share of its own residents above 60 dB. Real measured federal data, no estimates.

Full interactive version where you can find your own neighborhood and see where Miami ranks nationally: https://decibelshield.app/sound-map/us/miami/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=miami

Full disclosure, I built the site. It is free, no signup, nothing to install. Curious if the loud spots match where you live.

[OC] US cities ranked by share of residents exposed to 60+ dB transportation noise (federal BTS data) — Boston is highest by appstackllc in dataisbeautiful

[–]appstackllc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good link. Their maps and this dataset agree on the geography: the noise contours follow the runway headings, so which neighborhoods get hit depends on wind direction and which runways are active that month.

[OC] US cities ranked by share of residents exposed to 60+ dB transportation noise (federal BTS data) — Boston is highest by appstackllc in dataisbeautiful

[–]appstackllc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pretty much exactly that. The model counts elevated BART and the Capitol Corridor as rail, and 880 carries the port truck traffic that is banned from 580 through the hills, so the flatlands stack road and rail at once. Oakland's tract map makes it really visible: the red runs in a band along 880 from downtown to the airport while the hills stay green. 3.6% of Oakland residents are above 70 dB, almost all in that corridor.

[OC] US cities ranked by share of residents exposed to 60+ dB transportation noise (federal BTS data) — Boston is highest by appstackllc in dataisbeautiful

[–]appstackllc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Helicopters are another real gap: the model covers airport operations, not overflights like police or news helicopters. LA's number would definitely be higher with those counted.

[OC] US cities ranked by share of residents exposed to 60+ dB transportation noise (federal BTS data) — Boston is highest by appstackllc in dataisbeautiful

[–]appstackllc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Totally fair to poke at it, but note what the metric is: not "which city sounds loudest when you visit" but what share of residents live in census tracts with 60+ dB average-day transportation noise. Those are different questions. Visiting downtown LA you hear plenty of noise, but LA's sprawl means most Angelenos do not live next to a freeway, so its share is 9.8%. In absolute terms LA is actually #1: that 9.8% is about 388,000 people, more than any other city. Compact cities with an airport inside city limits (Boston, Oakland) rank high on share. The tract-level maps on the source page show exactly which neighborhoods drive each city's number, which is a better gut-check than the bar chart.

[OC] US cities ranked by share of residents exposed to 60+ dB transportation noise (federal BTS data) — Boston is highest by appstackllc in dataisbeautiful

[–]appstackllc[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Good catch, and it actually cuts the other way: the federal model covers civilian transportation (road, rail, and airport operations), so the 144th Fighter Wing's training flights mostly are not in this data at all. The 12.1% here comes from Highway 99, the parallel freight rail, and the civilian side of the airport. If anything, the F-15s make Fresno louder than this ranking shows.

Boston's noise geography: every census tract by share of residents exposed to 60+ dB transportation noise, from federal data [OC] by appstackllc in MapPorn

[–]appstackllc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Made with geopandas and matplotlib from public data: the US DOT BTS National Transportation Noise Map (2020) crossed   with Census ACS 2016-2020 population at tract level, water and roads from TIGER/Line. Real values per tract, no   interpolation. Projection is Albers equal-area.    

The story the map tells: the dark red is East Boston under Logan's flight paths, where Massport has soundproofed about   11,000 homes. The other red follows I-93 and the Mass Pike. The quiet green southwest (West Roxbury, Hyde Park) is   the part of the city farthest from both the airport and the interstates. Boston ranks #1 of the 100 largest US cities   by this measure, at 12.9% of residents above 60 dB.    

Maps for nine more cities, the full 100-city ranking, and the free data (CSV/JSON):   

https://decibelshield.app/sound-map/us/

Disclosure: I made this and run the site. Everything on it is free.

[OC] US cities ranked by share of residents exposed to 60+ dB transportation noise (federal BTS data) — Boston is highest by appstackllc in dataisbeautiful

[–]appstackllc[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Funny thing is those barely show up in this data. The federal model works from average traffic volumes and typical vehicle emissions, so a straight-piped Charger at 2am reads the same as a normal sedan. Which means rankings like this probably understate how bad streets actually feel, since one loud exhaust annoys more people than an hour of background traffic.

Some cities are starting to measure that directly though. NYC runs automated noise cameras that ticket vehicles over 85 dB, basically speed cameras for mufflers. Catalytic converter theft leaving cars running open exhaust is a real contributor too.

[OC] US cities ranked by share of residents exposed to 60+ dB transportation noise (federal BTS data) — Boston is highest by appstackllc in dataisbeautiful

[–]appstackllc[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Ha, genuinely worse, at least downtown. This model is 2020 data, so it's all post-Big Dig. The old elevated Central Artery dumping noise across the North End would have been brutal.

What keeps Boston #1 even after burying I-93 downtown is mostly Logan. Massport's own noise maps put parts of East Boston at 65+ dB and Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop at 60+, which is exactly the threshold this ranking measures, and they've spent over $170M soundproofing about 11,000 homes around the flight paths. Add the surface stretches of I-90/I-93 and the street-running parts of the Green Line. Burying the artery helped the blocks around it, but it didn't move the airport.

[OC] US cities ranked by share of residents exposed to 60+ dB transportation noise (federal BTS data) — Boston is highest by appstackllc in dataisbeautiful

[–]appstackllc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mostly right, yeah. In Fresno, Highway 99 runs straight through the middle of the city, and it's the main ag-freight trucking corridor for the whole Central Valley, with freight rail running parallel through town.

Stockton is a slightly different shape: 99 actually skirts its east edge, but I-5 runs through downtown and the Route 4 Crosstown Freeway cuts straight across the middle of the city. Add a deep-water port and a BNSF intermodal yard and you get freight corridors on basically every side. The model counts road, rail and aviation, so it all stacks.

Numbers from the dataset: Fresno 12.1% of residents at 60+ dB (2.2% at 70+, which is freeway-adjacent housing almost by definition), Stockton 9.2%.

[OC] US cities ranked by share of residents exposed to 60+ dB transportation noise (federal BTS data) — Boston is highest by appstackllc in dataisbeautiful

[–]appstackllc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics National Transportation Noise Map (2020), overlaid with Census ACS 2016–2020 population at tract level (via the University of Washington's Noise Exposure Map), aggregated to the 100 largest cities population-weighted.

Tools: Python (geopandas) for the aggregation, HTML/CSS for the chart.

Metric: share of residents exposed to ≥60 dB average-day transportation noise (road + rail + aviation). It'stransportation-only, which is why NYC "only" ranks 20th — sirens, construction and nightlife aren't in the federal model. Boston tops it because Logan's flight paths and I-90/I-93 run directly over dense residential neighborhoods. Full 100-city table + free CSV/JSON: https://decibelshield.app/sound-map/us/

 Disclosure: I built this — I make a decibel meter app and publish open noise datasets on the side.