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Effects of Freeway Rerouting and Boulevard Replacement on Air Pollution Exposure and Neighborhood Attributes
Freeway rerouting and replacement with a street-level boulevard are urban transportation policies, that may help redress disproportionate air pollution burdens resulting from freeway construction that took place during the mid-20th century. However, environmental justice activism for freeway rerouti...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6862437/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31652720 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16214072 |
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author | Patterson, Regan F. Harley, Robert A. |
author_facet | Patterson, Regan F. Harley, Robert A. |
author_sort | Patterson, Regan F. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Freeway rerouting and replacement with a street-level boulevard are urban transportation policies, that may help redress disproportionate air pollution burdens resulting from freeway construction that took place during the mid-20th century. However, environmental justice activism for freeway rerouting and urban green space creation may have the unintended consequence of environmental gentrification. In this paper, we investigate the effects of freeway routing decisions on exposure to traffic-related air pollution and neighborhood socioeconomic and demographic change. We focus on the effects of rerouting the Cypress Freeway in West Oakland, along with the construction of a street-level boulevard (Mandela Parkway), on the original freeway alignment. The impacts of two rebuild scenarios, freeway rebuild-in-place and reroute, on near-roadway NO(x) and BC concentrations are compared. We also assess changes in demographics and land use in West Oakland, between the time when the Cypress Freeway was damaged by a major earthquake and after completion of Mandela Parkway. Our research indicates that freeway rerouting reduced annual average concentrations of both NO(x) (−38% ± 4%) and BC (−25% ± 2%) along the Mandela Parkway alignment. However, there is evidence of environmentally driven neighborhood change, given that there are larger decreases in the long-time Black population (−28%) and increases in property values (184%) along Mandela Parkway, compared to West Oakland as a whole. There are some attributes along the Mandela Parkway that enable low-income residents to live in proximity to the street-level boulevard, such as affordable housing. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6862437 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-68624372019-12-05 Effects of Freeway Rerouting and Boulevard Replacement on Air Pollution Exposure and Neighborhood Attributes Patterson, Regan F. Harley, Robert A. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Freeway rerouting and replacement with a street-level boulevard are urban transportation policies, that may help redress disproportionate air pollution burdens resulting from freeway construction that took place during the mid-20th century. However, environmental justice activism for freeway rerouting and urban green space creation may have the unintended consequence of environmental gentrification. In this paper, we investigate the effects of freeway routing decisions on exposure to traffic-related air pollution and neighborhood socioeconomic and demographic change. We focus on the effects of rerouting the Cypress Freeway in West Oakland, along with the construction of a street-level boulevard (Mandela Parkway), on the original freeway alignment. The impacts of two rebuild scenarios, freeway rebuild-in-place and reroute, on near-roadway NO(x) and BC concentrations are compared. We also assess changes in demographics and land use in West Oakland, between the time when the Cypress Freeway was damaged by a major earthquake and after completion of Mandela Parkway. Our research indicates that freeway rerouting reduced annual average concentrations of both NO(x) (−38% ± 4%) and BC (−25% ± 2%) along the Mandela Parkway alignment. However, there is evidence of environmentally driven neighborhood change, given that there are larger decreases in the long-time Black population (−28%) and increases in property values (184%) along Mandela Parkway, compared to West Oakland as a whole. There are some attributes along the Mandela Parkway that enable low-income residents to live in proximity to the street-level boulevard, such as affordable housing. MDPI 2019-10-23 2019-11 /pmc/articles/PMC6862437/ /pubmed/31652720 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16214072 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Patterson, Regan F. Harley, Robert A. Effects of Freeway Rerouting and Boulevard Replacement on Air Pollution Exposure and Neighborhood Attributes |
title | Effects of Freeway Rerouting and Boulevard Replacement on Air Pollution Exposure and Neighborhood Attributes |
title_full | Effects of Freeway Rerouting and Boulevard Replacement on Air Pollution Exposure and Neighborhood Attributes |
title_fullStr | Effects of Freeway Rerouting and Boulevard Replacement on Air Pollution Exposure and Neighborhood Attributes |
title_full_unstemmed | Effects of Freeway Rerouting and Boulevard Replacement on Air Pollution Exposure and Neighborhood Attributes |
title_short | Effects of Freeway Rerouting and Boulevard Replacement on Air Pollution Exposure and Neighborhood Attributes |
title_sort | effects of freeway rerouting and boulevard replacement on air pollution exposure and neighborhood attributes |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6862437/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31652720 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16214072 |
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