Decibel Shield

Fresno noise map: where the city is loudest

Fresno ranks second in the US for transportation-noise exposure: 12.1% of residents live with 60 dB or louder average-day noise. The cause runs straight through the map — Highway 99, the Central Valley’s main freight artery, bisects the city with rail running parallel.

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Census-tract noise map of Fresno, CA: tracts colored green (few residents above 60 dB transportation noise) to red (half or more residents above 60 dB). The loudest tracts follow the Highway 99 freight corridor through the center of the city.
Every census tract colored by the share of its residents exposed to ≥60 dB average-day transportation noise — real values per tract from the federal BTS 2020 noise map, no interpolation.
Fresno noise exposure at a glance
US rank (of 100 largest cities) #2
Residents above 60 dB 12.1%
Residents above 70 dB 2.2%
Residents in the 45–60 dB band 66.6%
Population (ACS 2016–2020) 488,327
Census tracts mapped 111

Fresno is what happens when a freight corridor and a city grow into each other. Highway 99 — the trucking spine that moves the Central Valley’s agricultural output — passes directly through the middle of town rather than around it, with Union Pacific rail running alongside. State routes 41, 168 and 180 then cross the city in the other directions, slicing it into freeway-bounded quadrants.

The urban form does the rest: Fresno is flat and spread out, and decades of growth put subdivisions and apartment blocks immediately against the freeway fences, with no terrain and little buffering. The result is a noise map where the red traces the road network with diagram-like clarity — and a severe-exposure share (2.2% of residents above 70 dB) that is effectively a census of freeway-adjacent housing.

Fresno noise: the specifics

  • Highway 99, the Central Valley’s primary agricultural freight corridor, runs through the center of the city, not around it.
  • Four state routes (99, 41, 168, 180) cross inside city limits, dividing Fresno into freeway-bounded quadrants.
  • 2.2% of residents live above 70 dB — almost entirely in tracts touching the 99 corridor.
  • 12.1% of residents above 60 dB ranks #2 among the 100 largest US cities — see the full measured ranking.

How this map is made

This is a transparent aggregation of federal data, not an estimate: the BTS 2020 National Transportation Noise Map (road + rail + aviation) overlaid with Census ACS 2016–2020 population at tract level, clipped to the city boundary. Full methodology, limitations and the free CSV/JSON are on the US cities noise ranking. Remember what it doesn’t count: sirens, construction, nightlife and neighbors are outside the model.

How loud is your block?

The map shows averages by tract — your street is its own story. Measure it with the free online decibel meter → No install, nothing recorded.

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