NJ beats NY as the no. 1 loudest state in the US see where the Empire State landed
New Jersey takes the noise crown.A recent study found that New Jersey is the loudest state in the lower 48.Using metrics including residents and bars per square mile, road and air traffic, construction activity, noise complaint searches, public transit density, and dog ownership, the study weighted 0-to-100 scales for each category to determine overall noise rankings.The Garden State scored a deafeningly high 75.27 for overall noise, drowning out Massachusetts (57.03) and Rhode Island (55.39), which ranked second and third place, respectively.
The top five were rounded out by Maryland and Delaware.To the surprise of many, New York came in eighth place with a score of 26.03, just behind Connecticut and Florida.Manhattan Mental Health Counseling conducted the study, which excluded Alaska and Hawaii.
A constellation of factors pushed Jersey to the top spot.With 1,298 residents per square mile, the state has the highest population density.
New Jersey also has the highest daily commuter traffic, with 29,603 vehicle miles traveled per square mile each day.According to Natalie Buchwald, founder of Manhattan Mental Health Counseling, New Jersey’s high population and packed roads “make everyday noise hard for people to avoid.”She added that a bulk of the daily racket comes from commuting.
“Sitting in traffic with horns and engines around you, or squeezing onto packed trains, puts you on alert before you’ve even started your day.That tension tends to follow you into work and back home again,” said Buchwald in a statement.And that tonal tension could prove deadly.
Transportation noise has long posed a severe public health hazard: in 1981, the EPA warned that half the US population lived with harmful levels of road, rail, or aircraft noise.Today, EU researchers rank traffic noise as the second-greatest environmental threat after air pollution, responsible for a staggering one million years of healthy life lost each year, according to the WHO.A 2023 study foun...