Noise from traffic is putting nearly 1 in 6 San Francisco residents at risk for heart disease, high blood pressure and other stress-related illnesses, city public health officials have found.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health has ranked "highly annoyed" areas of the city - neighborhoods it says have noise so loud and so constant it could cause psychological and physical harm.
"There are real health impacts," Tom Rivard, senior environmental health specialist for the Department of Public Health, said Tuesday.
The assessment by the city and UC Berkeley researchers was based on population, traffic congestion, topography and decibel readings. Sophisticated three-dimensional maps pinpoint the noisiest areas of San Francisco, building by building, hour by hour.
Traffic noise is loudest in the South of Market area but affects the most people in the densely populated Chinatown, Civic Center and Tenderloin neighborhoods.
"Traffic," Rivard noted, "is the No. 1 contributor to the ambient noise level" in San Francisco.
But the constant hum from congestion is just one of many sounds that environmental health researchers find troubling. They're also concerned about racket from such sources as sirens, trains and exhaust fans.
Eventually, Rivard hopes to expand the department's model to include those noises to further highlight the problem and help shape building codes, land-use regulations and transportation policy.
Noise - especially at night - can keep people awake, adding to their stress level. And that, in turn, can contribute to high blood pressure, heart disease, depression and digestive problems, said Rivard, pointing to findings by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
That doesn't surprise Victoria Sanchez, a 58-year-old housewife who lives on Cayuga Avenue in San Francisco's Mission Terrace district, tucked between Interstate 280 and Alemany Boulevard.
Her neighborhood isn't the noisiest, but it ranks high in concern because of its close proximity to major roads and freeways, which makes people in those locations more vulnerable to health problems, the study found.
"I wake up cranky sometimes because of all the noise," she said. "Sometimes it's hard to sleep."
Sanchez, who raised five children in her family home of more than 20 years, said that even on warm days she finds herself keeping her doors and windows shut tight to block out the cacophony of cars, trucks and buses. "Sometimes all you want is peace."
Sirens in the night
Across town, in another noisy neighborhood, Michael Pedersen is jolted awake many nights by sirens. He lives near a fire station at Polk and Post streets, where crews responded to more than 2,400 calls last year. The station is thought to be one of the busiest in the nation.
"We've got a real noise problem here. It's driving us crazy," said Pedersen, a sculptor who serves as safety committee chairman of the Lower Polk Neighbors group. "I have to sleep with earplugs. A lot of us do."
The neighborhood association has been pushing the Fire Department to reduce the use of sirens and air horns in the neighborhood. Fire Department brass has assured neighbors that all efforts will be made to comply with their request - as long as traffic safety isn't hampered.
60-65 decibels is normal
The noise level of someone speaking in a normal voice measures between 60 and 65 decibels, Rivard said. Anything above that, he said, puts people at risk of noise-related health problems. Researchers found that a siren from a passing fire engine in San Francisco emits 106 decibels. An increase of just 3 decibels doubles the acoustical energy emitted, meaning that the noise difference between a siren and a normal conversation is immense.
Rivard predicts that noise pollution will continue to affect more and more people, in part due to refashioned building codes. In Chinatown, for instance, the new public library branch there has a ventilation and air conditioning system that is drawing noise complaints from neighbors. A similar problem has cropped up at the City College branch on Valencia Street in the Mission District. The new surge of residential development projects in such areas as the South of Market, Mission Bay and the Bayview, also will add to the city's noise problems.
A new noise ordinance for San Francisco, sponsored by Supervisor Tom Ammiano and winding its way through the approval process, calls for tighter noise controls and would make it easier for city officials to enforce the regulations. It also sets new standards for allowable noise levels.
Hopes for ordinance
Rivard hopes the ordinance, coupled with the new mapping system, will give officials the tools they need to creatively tackle the problem. That could mean the construction of sound walls, curtailed operating hours for noisy businesses, such as night clubs and restaurants, or requiring them to better muffle the noise they generate.
It also could lead to measures to reduce traffic. Among the ideas: convert some one-way streets into two-way streets, improve transit to lure drivers out of their cars and restrict trucks on largely residential streets.
3) Western Addition
4) Inner Mission
5) Nob Hill/Pacific Heights/ Russian Hill/Marina