Unintended impacts of the Open Streets program on noise complaints in New York City

Abstract

Background and Aim: Exposure to high levels of environmental noise and noise annoyance have been associated with detrimental health outcomes. In 2012, a campaign in New York City (NYC) measured noise levels frequently exceeding recommended standards. Noise complaints 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 through the Open Streets program. We aim to describe the citywide distribution of noise complaints by census tract percentage of Open Streets. Methods: We conducted analyses at the census tract level from 2019 to 2021 across NYC. We used noise complaints from 311 calls for specific locations and times, which we aggregated to daily census tract counts of noise complaints. We focused on two categories of noise complaints that may be impacted by Open Streets: vehicle and street/sidewalk noise complaints. We used a mixed-effects model with random intercepts for census tracts to estimate the association between changes in noise complaints and area covered by Open Streets (%) given tract-level socioeconomic status and street geometry. We allowed for nonlinear exposure–outcome relationships using natural splines. We also carried out sensitivity analyses using data from a citizen’s survey on Open Streets implementation levels gathered by Transportation Alternatives (TA) to assess its impact on model results. Results: Census tracts with increasing use of street space as Open Streets (i.e. higher than 5%) reported more daily street/sidewalk noise complaints. For vehicle noise complaints, 5 to 10% of area covered by Open Streets showed increasing noise complaints but estimates plateaued at higher percentages. The sensitivity analyses using TA implementation data showed that our estimates were fairly robust. Conclusions: Our preliminary results suggest that Open Streets were associated with increases in street/sidewalk noise complaints. Keywords (2-6): Policy, Noise annoyance, Open Streets, Urban planning, Cities