HIA Archive: Still/Lyell Freeway Channel/Excelsior District

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HIA Archive : Still/Lyell Freeway Channel/Excelsior District

Still/Lyell Freeway Channel in the Excelsior District
Authors: San Francisco Department of Public Health
Date: November 2004

Links HIA Report: Health, Traffic and Environmental Justice: a HIA of the Still/Lyell Freeway Channel in the Excelsior District Background Report: The History of the I-280 Freeway through the Excelsior District Contact Rajiv Bhatia, MD, MPH 1390 Market Street, Ste. 822 San Francisco, CA 94102 415-252-3982 Email:

Summary of the HIA *

Policy or Project
No pending proposal. This HIA examined the health impacts associated with past construction of the I-280 Freeway and high-traffic surface streets in the Excelsior District of San Francisco.

Background ** and Policy Context
San Francisco’s Excelsior District represents a working class community comprised of young people, immigrants and families of color. The area is also disproportionately exposed to concentrated traffic pollution associated with its proximity to the 280 freeway and several large busy thoroughfares. These corridors act as shortcut routes for many diesel trucks and busses as well as thousands of vehicles passing through daily. Amid concerns that residents in the Excelsior District of San Francisco were being disproportionately exposed to traffic-related exposures, People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights (PODER), along with the San Francisco Department of Public Health and UC Berkley School of Public Health, set out to determine what were the community health impacts of heavy traffic and the transportation systems in the neighborhood. The collaborative focused on the associated health impacts of these thoroughfares on residents via air pollution, noise exposures, and pedestrian hazards.

Scope and Methods
The initial priorities of the project were to develop community knowledge regarding the environmental health challenges and community vulnerability. It was also necessary to involve community members in identifying practical solutions that could lead to community change in addressing these issues.

In order to assess current and historical conditions related to the neighborhood’s population and health-related conditions, researchers used:

Door-to-door community surveys
Traffic counts
Community photography
Oral histories
Outdoor air quality and noise modeling
Outdoor air quality and noise exposure assessment
Pedestrian environmental quality evaluation
Historical document review
Publicly available data from sources including hospitalization data, U.S. Census data, and traffic-related injury data

Summary of findings
A table of key findings pertaining to: traffic, air quality, environmental noise, pedestrian hazards, the community, community health outcomes, and community solutions can be accessed using this link- http://www.sfphes.org/PODER/PODER_KeyFindings.pdf.

Updated 06/23/2009

* The HIA-CLIC website and this summary were developed by the UCLA Health Impact Assessment (UCLA-HIA) Project with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Every effort has been made to ensure that these summaries are factually accurate. HIA authors have been given an opportunity to review summaries before posting. HIA authors may notify us of any factual inaccuracies or updates by filling out a Request for Update form (click for pop-up form).

** Readers interested in more detail, including literature citations, for the background summarized here are encouraged to view the full HIA report (see external link above), or to review the relevant Pathway section of HIA-CLIC.