Happy Holidays! I am on vacation until January 3, 2012. I will respond to your message in the New Year! Warm regards, Gina Hi everyone - I wanted to share the following report summarizing the findings of a health impact assessment (HIA) of a potential road pricing program in San Francisco conducted by the San Francisco Department of Public Health's Program on Health, Equity and Sustainability as I thought it may be of interest to the list. The HIA was completed this Fall with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Active Living Research Program. A summary and detailed technical report of the findings are available at: http://www.sfphes.org/HIA_Road_Pricing.htm. For the HIA analysis, SFDPH used a variety of methods to assess potential transportation-related health effects - including air quality-related premature mortality, traffic noise-related annoyance and heart attacks, injury to pedestrians and cyclists, and health benefits from active transportation – and evaluated health-related equity effects and associated economic value. The HIA found that transportation system operation in San Francisco has substantial health burdens and benefits today. Health burdens are expected to increase in the future owing to increasing motor vehicles on local roadways and increasing population densities in already congested areas. However, there are also estimated increases in active transportation (walking and biking) that bring some health benefits and save lives. Road pricing, if implemented, could moderate but not entirely eliminate the changes associated with a future under “business as usual” that includes increasing populations and traffic and no new policies or funding to manage the transportation system. Road pricing could also generate significant economic value by reducing transportation-related adverse effects and increasing walking and biking. HIA recommendations include increasing congestion pricing fees where they can reduce health risks (e.g., on spare the air days) and investing in targeted infrastructure to reduce pedestrian and cyclist injury and increase active transportation. Thank you, and happy holidays! ------------------------------------------------------------- Megan L. Wier, MPH, Epidemiologist Program on Health, Equity and Sustainability San Francisco Department of Public Health phone: 415-252-3972, fax: 415-252-3964 Megan.Wier(a)sfdph.org www.sfphes.org _______________________________________________ H+T--Friends mailing list H+T--Friends(a)chrispy.net http://ryoko.chrispy.net/mailman/listinfo/h+t--friends