We will monitor and model neighborhood-level air quality across New York City
Over the next 12 months, the City will work with experts in the academic, medical, and private sectors to develop one of the largest local air quality studies ever in the United States. Starting in 2008, the City will begin to study, monitor, model, map, and track local pollution and local adverse impact across New York City, with an emphasis on traffic-related emissions. (See chart above: Asthma Hospitalizations)

This enhanced monitoring system in New York will:

• Measure the variation in air quality across all neighborhoods over time
• Assess the impact of development, infrastructure changes, traffic changes, and traffic mitigation measures in our communities
• Provide guidance for future efforts to improve neighborhood air quality

Although a study of this scale is almost unprecedented, our effort will build on recent successful projects to track local emissions. For example, exposure to certain pollutants at schools in the South Bronx have been correlated with hourly truck traffic on nearby highways, and students with asthma had more symptoms on high traffic pollution days.

This research has employed a variety of cost-effective approaches that we can adapt for understanding air quality in all 188 neighborhoods. Strategies will include periodic monitoring at a range of sites and developing statistical models that correlate the impact of traffic and land-use patterns with air quality.

The study findings will establish priority neighborhoods for improvement and provide baseline data to track the impact of development, policy, and transit changes over the coming decades.

Progress (as of 4/22/08):
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) has consulted with leading air quality scientists, community groups, and other stakeholders to develop a proposal for a study of local variation in air quality. DOHMH finalized the design of the New York City Community Air Survey (NYCCAS) and has entered into a contract with Queens College to jointly conduct the study. NYCCAS will measure, at a minimum of 130 street level locations in each season each year, oxides of nitrogen, ozone, sulfur dioxide, fine particle (PM2.5) mass, elemental carbon, and the metal content of air. DOHMH and Queens College have pilot tested sampling units, have begun to assemble them, and are testing instrumentation in the field this Spring. The City will launch the first air sampling campaign in Summer 2008.