New Bern, NC Noise Levels
Is New Bern, NC noisy?
New Bern, NC's 60-69.9 dB(A) band spans one of HUD's zone boundaries, so the honest answer is a range: somewhere between "Acceptable" (65 dB(A) or below) and "Normally Unacceptable" (65-75 dB(A)), not one clean verdict. Aircraft drives that number here, not the other two sources. That's the reading at New Bern's Census-defined center point, not any one street, BTS's map is a live raster, not a per-address service.
New Bern's noise, by source
Each of the three transportation modes gets its own model from BTS; the combined figure above is what they add up to.
What this means for a house here
Depending on where in that band the true value sits, it may also clear FHWA's 66 dB(A) residential impact threshold (23 CFR 772, Table 1), the trigger highway agencies use for sound-wall decisions. Aircraft noise is intermittent and lower-frequency, which is why FAA’s Part 150 program funds whole-envelope sound insulation for homes inside an airport’s own mapped noise contour rather than relying on window replacement alone.
Where New Bern ranks
Among the 3,622 US places in this dataset with any measurable transportation noise, New Bern ranks 109, loudest first. Population is about 34,218, 1,205th largest of the 12,137 places covered here.
Your street may differ from New Bern's reading
This page describes New Bern as a whole. If one specific address is what matters, BTS publishes the same underlying map for free.
Behind New Bern's reading
The methodology guide shows exactly how New Bern's reading was built from BTS's tile data. Since aircraft is what's driving this reading, the guide to what actually cuts each kind of noise covers the fix that fits.