Relationship Between Highway Noise, Noise Mitigation, and Residential Housing Values

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This report presents the findings of a study of the relationship between different noise levels and market values for a sample of 206 single-family residences abutting I-495 in Northern Virginia and for a sample of 207 residences along two heavily traveled urban streets in the Tidewater area of Virginia. Estimates of the influence of noise on the market price of houses sold in 1978-79 at these sites where barriers have since been completed were then used to estimate economic benefits received by property owners. Among the 413 transactions, in which residences changed hands, only one of five noise measures, the level of noise exceeded 10% of the time (L10), proved to be a statistically significant influence on market price, and this was the case only for houses sold in Northern Virginia. In Tidewater Virginia, the relationship between market price and noise was not statistically significant except at low confidence levels. For the Northern Virginia sample, 1 dB(A) increases in L10 noise levels were associated with a 0.15% reduction in the market price of dwellings. Linear regression estimates of market willingness to pay for noise reduction revealed that a 1 dB(A) change in L10 levels was valued at approximately $94 ± $88 that is, the maximum consumers willingly pay to avoid noise in the markets studied is about $182 per dB(A). Using these estimates as a gauge of economic benefits, recent public expenditures in these markets on highway noise abatement per household far exceed such benefit levels, even for noise reductions of 10 dB(A).

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