Equity of Highway Noise Exposure

Abstract

This article discusses the inequities in exposure to highway noise, which can have adverse effects on health, productivity, and quality of life. If certain subpopulations tend to live near highways because of structural inequality, gentrification, lack of social capital, or other reasons, then highway noise can contribute to inequity in a systematic way. The authors developed an online mapping application, the Noise Inequity Identification Tool (NIIT), to visualize the noise damage cost of noise pollution from road segments, the noise-equity ratios at the county level, and the population distribution of various demographics. The methodology combines estimates of roadway traffic noise levels with the cost of noise damage from the hedonic pricing literature and estimates of the number of households affected to estimate the noise damage cost for each road segment in the U.S. The cost of the noise damage accruing to each demographic is then aggregated over a larger region and normalized by their proportion of the population to calculate the “noise-equity ratio,” revealing substantial inequities in highway noise exposure between demographics at a variety of spatial scales. By using this tool, planners and practitioners can easily identify regions with existing highway noise exposure inequities and pinpoint roadways with excessive noise damage costs to recommend potential externality mitigation projects.