  Transportation is one of the most pervasive sources of community noise. In
this study, we used a spatially-resolved model of transportation-related noise
with established transportation noise exposure-response functions to estimate
the population highly annoyed (HA) due to aviation, road, and railway traffic
sources in the United States. Additionally, we employed the use of the Fair
Share Ratio to assess race/ethnicity disparities in traffic noise exposures.
Our results estimate that in 2020, 7.8 million (2.4%) individuals were highly
annoyed by aviation noise, while 5.2 million (1.6%) and 7.9 million (2.4%)
people were highly annoyed by rail and roadway noise, respectively, across the
US. The Fair Share Ratio revealed that Non-Hispanic Asian, Black, NHPI, and
Other, and Hispanic populations were disproportionally highly annoyed by
transportation noise nationwide. Notably, Hispanic populations experienced the
greatest share of high annoyance from aviation noise (1.69 times their
population share). Non-Hispanic Black populations experienced the greatest
share of high annoyance from railway noise (1.48 times their population share).
Non-Hispanic Asian populations experienced the greatest share of high annoyance
from roadway noise (1.51 times their population share). Analyses at the state
and Urban Area levels further highlighted varying disparities in transportation
noise exposure and annoyance across different race ethnicity groups, but still
suggested that Non-Hispanic White populations were less annoyed by all sources
of transportation noise compared to non-White populations. Our findings
indicate widespread presence of transportation noise annoyance across the US
and emphasize the need for targeted source-specific noise mitigation strategies
and policies to minimize the disproportionate impact of transportation noise in
the US.
