Unintended Impacts of Open Streets on Noise Complaints in New York City
Video
Team Information
Team Members
Jaime Benavides, Postdoctoral Researcher, Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health
Faculty Advisor: Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou, Assistant Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health
Abstract
Exposure to high levels of environmental noise and noise annoyance have been associated with detrimental health outcomes. Although noise levels in New York City (NYC) are not routinely monitored, a campaign in 2012 measured noise levels, which were correlated with traffic density, frequently exceeding recommended standards. Noise complaints from municipalities have been used as a proxy of noise annoyance and exposure. NYC has been opening parts of its street network to recreation and physical activity, stimulated by a wide range of cultural events, through the Open Streets program. We aim to describe the citywide distribution of noise complaints from 2019 to 2021 by presence and percentage of open streets. We conducted analyses at the census tract level from 2019 to 2021 across New York City. We used noise complaints from 311 calls for specific locations and times, which we aggregated to census tract counts of noise complaints per day. We focused on two categories of noise complaints that may be impacted by the presence of open streets: vehicle and street/sidewalk noise complaints. We obtained annual census tract-level race/ethnicity and poverty information from the American Community Surveys. We used a mixed-effects model with random intercepts for census tracts to estimate the association between changes in noise complaints and presence/percentage of open streets given tract-level socioeconomic status. Our preliminary results suggest that Open Streets were not associated with noise complaints. However, the actual implementation level of Open Streets is not reflected in the available dataset and results are subject to change if/when implementation information becomes available.
Team Lead Contact
Jaime Benavides: jap2312@cumc.columbia.edu
