What Quiet Costs in the Outer Boroughs
Glen Oaks and Bellerose, the quietest ZIP code in this guide, against its transit-access average. That is the exchange rate at its steepest
Bestage 311 noise records and MTA stop locations, updated weekly
People leave Manhattan for a neighborhood, not a street, and the neighborhoods they leave for are the same sixteen names every time. This page checks those names against two numbers at once: what the complaint record says about the quiet, and what the map says about the train.
The trade runs steeply. Sort the sixteen by quiet and the transit column falls almost in step with it. Glen Oaks and Bellerose sit at the top on quiet, at 83, on a transit average of 13. Douglaston's 11363 is close behind on quiet, at 74, on a transit average of 5, which is the lowest figure on the page. At the other end, 11226, which is Flatbush as much as it is Ditmas Park, posts a transit average of 73 and the worst quiet score of the sixteen at 32.
Two names refuse the trade, and they are the ones to look at first. Bay Ridge averages 62 on the quiet score and 61 on transit, and Park Slope averages 63 and 73. Both beat every Bronx name on this page on quiet while keeping a transit figure in the sixties or seventies, which no eastern Queens ZIP code here manages.
Quiet counts 311 noise complaints filed on a street against the homes and businesses on it, then ranks each street against streets of the same kind. It is a complaint record, not a decibel reading at your window.
| Neighborhood | ZIP | Quiet | Transit | Blocks 85+ on quiet |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glen Oaks and Bellerose, QN | 11004 | 83 | 13 | 10 |
| Dyker Heights and Bath Beach, BK | 11228 | 81 | 48 | 6 |
| Douglaston, QN | 11363 | 74 | 5 | 4 |
| Little Neck, QN | 11362 | 67 | 8 | 2 |
| Bayside, QN | 11361 | 68 | 10 | 5 |
| Marine Park and Mill Basin, BK | 11234 | 66 | 14 | 19 |
| Bay Ridge, BK | 11209 | 62 | 61 | 6 |
| Park Slope, BK | 11215 | 63 | 73 | 7 |
| Forest Hills, QN | 11375 | 63 | 51 | 9 |
| Windsor Terrace and Kensington, BK | 11218 | 56 | 75 | 5 |
| Riverdale and Fieldston, BX | 10471 | 55 | 32 | 6 |
| Co-op City, BX | 10475 | 51 | 41 | 3 |
| Jamaica Estates and Hillcrest, QN | 11432 | 48 | 50 | 4 |
| City Island, BX | 10464 | 47 | 8 | 1 |
| Country Club and Throgs Neck, BX | 10465 | 36 | 18 | 5 |
| Flatbush and Ditmas Park, BK | 11226 | 32 | 73 | 1 |
The Names That Deliver
Six of the sixteen average above 65 on the quiet score. Five of those six are worth going out of your way for; Bayside's 11361 is the one that is only ordinary on everything else.
Glen Oaks and Bellerose hold the strongest quiet figure on this page and the most blocks at 85 or higher of any Queens ZIP code here. The streets are numbered and they behave alike: 260th Street scores 99 on quiet with a transit score of 19, and 263rd Street scores 98 with transit at 15. This is a garden-apartment grid at the county line, and every block on it reads the same way on transit.
Dyker Heights and Bath Beach are the Brooklyn version with far better access, at a transit average of 48 against 13 in Glen Oaks. 15th Avenue scores 97 on quiet with a transit score of 55 and a cleanliness score of 89, across 605 buildings, which makes it one of the largest genuinely quiet streets in the borough rather than a cul-de-sac.
Douglaston and Little Neck are two ZIP codes rather than one, and they post high quiet scores and the weakest transit access on this page. Douglaston's 11363 averages 74 on quiet against 5 on transit, and Little Neck's 11362 averages 67 against 8. The individual blocks are more extreme than either average, with Depew Avenue in Douglaston at 87 on quiet and 2 on transit. If you would ever need a train at short notice, this is the corner of the city that punishes it hardest.
Marine Park and Mill Basin hold more blocks at 85 or higher on quiet than any other neighborhood on this page, on a transit average in the teens. Royce Street scores 93 on quiet and 1 on transit, and Cove Lane scores 88 on quiet against 1 on transit. The quiet here is in the complaint record, and so is a transit average of 14.
Pro Tip: Read the transit score next to the quiet score, always. In eastern Queens the two run in opposite directions on almost every block.
The Names That Do Not
Four more are sold on calm. Three do not have it at the neighborhood level, and the fourth has it on one road and gives it back on traffic safety.
Ditmas Park is the plainest failure on the page, and the first thing to say is that it shares 11226 with Flatbush. Across the ZIP code's 42 graded streets the quiet average is 32, the lowest of the sixteen, on a strong Brooklyn transit figure of 73. The Victorian houses are there. The low complaint count the reputation implies is not.
Country Club and Throgs Neck is the case that should worry a buyer most, because it pays the full price and gets little back. The 10465 ZIP code averages 36 on quiet and 18 on transit, so it is as cut off as eastern Queens and considerably louder. The individual blocks tell you it is a street question rather than a neighborhood one: Giegerich Place scores 96 on quiet and Fairfax Avenue 94, both far above their own ZIP code's average.
City Island has the lowest transit average in the Bronx column at 8 and a quiet average of 47, which is ordinary. Its count of blocks at 85 or higher on quiet is 1. The complaint record does not show silence out there.
Jamaica Estates delivers the quiet on the block people mean and gives it back on traffic safety. Its 11432 averages 48 on quiet, ordinary for the page, but Gothic Drive scores 98 on quiet, among the highest numbers on this page, and 19 on traffic safety. The wide, fast, uncrossable roads that keep the complaints down are the same roads that produce that second number. If you are moving here with small children, the quiet score is the wrong one to read first.
Gothic Drive in Jamaica Estates is near the top of this page on quiet and near the bottom on traffic safety. The same road shape produces both.
The Blocks That Do Not Charge You
The exchange rate is an average, and averages have exceptions. A handful of outer-borough streets hold a quiet score in the nineties and a transit score to match, which is what makes them the most useful addresses here.
The Esplanade, off Pelham Parkway in the east Bronx, scores 99 on quiet and 81 on transit, with cleanliness at 93 and traffic safety at 88. It grades 81 overall, the highest overall grade on this page by a distance, in the borough that finishes last in the city on quiet. Knapp Street in Baychester does something similar on the quiet and transit columns, at 98 and 84, and then gives it back on traffic safety at 19.
Brooklyn's version is an avenue rather than a side street. Fourth Avenue through Bay Ridge scores 90 on quiet and 88 on transit, with food access at 91, a figure no eastern Queens block on this page comes close to. Its weak column is traffic, at 32. A little further inland the pattern repeats without the avenue: Perry Terrace scores 90 on quiet, 60 on transit and 90 on food, and Vanderbilt Street in Windsor Terrace scores 92 on quiet against 75 on transit.
None of those blocks is in a neighborhood anyone recommends for its calm, which is the point the table above is making. Look up the exact street and read its quiet score and its transit score together. Quiet is a rank inside a street's own type, so 50 is the middle of that band and anything below it sits in the louder half of streets of the same kind, whatever the neighborhood is called. Transit is ranked against every street in the city, and below 20 you are buying a car.