Seattle is routinely listed as one of the most and cities in the nation. The city government has committed to , which aims to completely eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030, and embarked on a slew of infrastructure projects: , and .听

Such safety projects sometimes meet opposition from local business owners, who worry that reduced parking and disruption to regular traffic flow will hurt their bottom line.听听

New research from the 天美影视传媒 suggests those worries are unfounded. , an analysis of seven safety projects across Seattle found they had no negative impact on the annual revenues of nearby businesses for three years after construction began. The results could help city officials gather support from local business owners and remove a barrier to fulfilling Seattle鈥檚 Vision Zero pledge.听

“Some business owners may be concerned that Vision Zero pedestrian safety projects lead to a trade-off between safety and economic viability. Our research found there is no economic harm in improving safety, and such projects offer the health benefits of reducing injuries,鈥� said study co-author , a UW affiliate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and of urban planning.听

The study was led by UW alumnus , who completed the research for concurrent master鈥檚 degrees in public health and urban planning and now works at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.听听

Researchers identified seven road safety projects of varying types, from the addition of bike lanes and crosswalks to speed limit adjustments and the removal of traffic lanes. The project sites were in six of Seattle鈥檚 seven council districts 鈥� they could not find a suitable project in West Seattle 鈥� and were all initiated between 2006 and 2014. All seven sites were commercially zoned and close to similar commercial zones that remained unchanged.听

Using revenue data that each Washington business submits to the state, researchers established a baseline of taxable sales for businesses adjacent to each safety project, as well as for businesses in the nearby comparison areas. Researchers included only businesses that the state Department of Revenue database identified as 鈥渞etail trade,鈥� 鈥渁ccommodation and food services,鈥� and 鈥渙ther services.鈥� They excluded businesses from sectors that are less reliant on street-level activity, like manufacturing or construction.听

In the three years after each safety intervention, researchers found no significant difference in the year-over-year change in revenue of the businesses in the intervention and comparison sites. On average, taxable sales increased in both the intervention and comparison sites over time, and at largely the same rate.听听

鈥淚f there had been a major impact of taking away parking spaces or disrupting traffic leading to a loss of business, you would expect sales to go down in places that had the interventions and not go down in the comparison sites,鈥� Dannenberg said. 鈥淚n fact, they stayed about the same, within statistical range. The sales data do not suggest any economic harm occurred, in fact there were a few instances where the safety interventions might have even helped sales.”听

The study has some limitations. For example, researchers did not examine whether certain types of businesses might have been affected differently than others, or how factors like the supply of nearby parking spots unaffected by construction might have impacted the results.听

Dannenberg, who serves on the Seattle planning commission, believes this work may help facilitate communication between city planners and business interests.听听

鈥淎 walkable environment generally encourages business,鈥� Dannenberg said. 鈥淚 think this work has听 implications that will be useful to policy makers who work on pedestrian safety and livable community issues.鈥�听

Other co-authors are Jessica Acolin and Paul Fishman of the Department of Health Systems and Population Health in the UW School of Public Health.听

For more information, contact Dannenberg at adannen@uw.edu.听

Prior to catastrophic flooding expected during the next few decades, people living in these communities can begin an orderly process of managed retreat, or planned relocation, to higher ground either nearby or at a distance.

A 天美影视传媒 published last month in the journal Climatic Change examined through the lens of public health how this process affects the people in question.

“Managed retreat has disruptive health, sociocultural and economic impacts on the communities that relocate,” said lead author Dr. , an affiliate professor in the UW School of Public Health and in the College of Built Environments.

Those impacts include mental health, social networks, food security, water supply, sanitation, infectious diseases, injury and health care access. The analysis found that relocating may bring some positive changes such as improved living conditions as well as some challenges, such as impairment to subsistence livelihoods.

“It can be a mixed blessing,” Dannenberg said.

The researchers focused on eight villages 鈥� four in North and Central America and four in the South Pacific 鈥� to learn what happens to people and communities when rising oceans force people with limited resources to relocate.

Researchers looked at existing literature, including academic papers and news reports, to examine the public health impacts of these relocations. The community populations ranged from 60 to 2,700 people, in places including Alaska, Louisiana and Washington state, as well as Panama, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

One of the affected communities in the Northwest is the Quinault Indian Nation village of 660 people in Taholah, Washington, that is at growing risk from sea level rise, storm surges and tsunamis. With a $700,000 federal grant, the residents have completed a Master Plan to rebuild on nearby higher ground and to incorporate best development practices consistent with community input. Substantial additional funds will be needed to complete the relocation, Dannenberg said.

The authors of the new study suggest that human health should be a consideration in the managed retreat process, although health issues received relatively little attention in most of the case studies reviewed. While some relocations were successful, other communities faced barriers, such as lack of a suitable new location, funding, or community consensus on when and where to move. As one official in Fiji commented: 鈥淩elocation 鈥is] not about moving houses, it鈥檚 about moving lives.鈥�

“Further research is needed to better understand the public health implications of managed retreat and how to facilitate population resilience before, during and after relocation,” Dannenberg wrote.

Co-authors are Jeremy J. Hess and Kristie L. Ebi of the UW, and Howard Frumkin of both the UW and the Wellcome Trust, London.

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For more information, contact Dannenberg at adannen@uw.edu.

天美影视传媒 professors and are co-authors of the first of this series that explores these connections and suggests several planning alternatives for better health.

The Lancet published the series on Sept. 23 and launched it that day during an event at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Titled, “,” the series involved researchers in several nations and fields.

Moudon is a professor emerita of urban design and planning and architecture in the UW . Dannenberg is an affiliate professor of environmental and occupational health in the and in urban design and planning.

“Most of the negative consequences of city planning policies on health are related to the high priority given to motor vehicles in land-use and transportation planning,” said Moudon. “City planning policies supporting urban individual car travel directly and indirectly influence such risk exposures as traffic, air pollution, noise, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, personal safety and social isolation.”

Moudon is second author and Dannenberg a co-author on the first of the three papers, titled “.” and of the University of Melbourne are lead authors of the series, and Corti is lead on this paper, together with several international experts in public health and transportation planning as co-authors. Over two years, the team reviewed 20 years of literature as well as their own research on the health impacts of city planning through transportation mode choice in cities.

The verdict of their lead article: Automobiles are central to the problem of urban planning and human health.

Individualized motor travel in cities is the “root cause,” Moudon and fellow authors write, “of increases in exposures to sedentarism, environmental pollution, social isolation and unhealthy diets, which lead to various types of injury and disease outcomes.”

The lead paper suggests eight major interventions that city and transportation planning can employ to make cities more “compact” and promote health.

At the local urban design level, these ideas include walkable and bikable environments, shorter distances to common daily destinations, mixing housing with commercial developments and services and making common destinations more readily available to citizens. Parking demand would be managed by reducing its availability and increasing its cost.

“Together, these interventions will create healthier and more sustainable, compact cities,” the authors write, “that reduce the environmental, social and behavioral risk factors that affect lifestyle choices, levels of environmental pollution, noise and crime.”

Stevenson is the lead author on the , which focuses on the links between land use, transport and health benefits in compact cities. The , whose lead author is James Sallis of the University of California, San Diego, looks at using science to guide city planning policy and practice for healthy and sustainable cities.

Overall, the series quantifies the health gains that could be achieved if cities incentivize a shift from private car use to cycling and walking, and promote a city model in which employment and amenities 鈥� including public transportation 鈥� are within walking distance.

Series author Giles-Corti placed the multinational research into historic and global perspective, noting that with world population heading to 50 billion by 2050 鈥� and three-quarters of people to be living in cities 鈥� city planning must be part of a comprehensive solution to adverse health outcomes.

“City planning was key to cutting infectious disease outbreaks in the 19th century through improved sanitation, housing and separating residential and industrial areas,” Giles-Corti said. “Today, there is a real opportunity for city planning to reduce non-communicable diseases and road trauma and to promote health and wellbeing more broadly.”

Other co-authors on the first paper in the series are from the University of California, San Diego; Washington University in St. Louis; Pontifical Catholic University of Parana and Federal University of Parana, in Brazil; Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia; the University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia; and the Australian Catholic University, Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute and Swinburne University of Technology, all of Melbourne, Australia.

Funders for the paper authors included Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council and Centre for Excellence in Healthy Liveable Communities, the Australian Prevention Partnership Centre, the Hospitals Contribution Fund of Australia, VicHealth, as well as the U.S. National Institute of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

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For more information, contact Moudon at 206-276-3133 or moudon@uw.edu or Dannenberg at 404-272-3978 or adannen@uw.edu.

• The series is available at .