Assessing the health impact of proposed congestion pricing plan for downtown San Francisco

Abstract

In an effort to reduce worsening traffic congestion in downtown San Francisco, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) is considering congestion charging in the downtown area, as was done in the City of London. Our research examined how different pricing alternatives considered by SFCTA impacted the health of residents in different communities in the county, paying particular attention to disadvantaged communities. The research leveraged the data obtained from an on-going ITS-Davis research project that is studying the non-health related impact of congestion pricing for the city of San Francisco, where detailed travel data were produced by the city’s transportation modeling team. It also made use of the health assessment procedure developed in a previous CTECH project. We believe that our work adds a health dimension to the assessment of congestion pricing and sheds light on how different communities are impacted by this traffic management tool.