When New York City passed a law in 2019 that would charge a fee to motorists who drive into Manhattan south of 60th Street, one of the world’s most traffic-clogged business districts, climate advocates hailed it as a historic win for the health of New Yorkers and the environment. But if you zoomed out on the map from Manhattan, things looked more complicated. Forecasts showed that truck drivers seeking to avoid congestion pricing would end up driving more through areas outside the tolling zone. “All tolling scenarios will increase heavy-duty truck trips in neighborhoods along the Cross Bronx Expressway, worsening emissions and associated harms to health,” wrote Rachel Levine, President Biden’s assistant secretary for health, in a letter in November 2022 to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and other agencies behind the plan. How Unjust Is Your Environment? The CDC’s New Map Will Show You Referencing full-color maps of the South Bronx, she urged measures to counteract the additional traffic, such as prioritizing nearby schools for air filtration systems and deploying zero-emissions buses. She added, “These communities likely breathe more diesel [particulate matter] than 98 percent of communities nationwide.” Her concerns echoed long-standing local calls for a fairer environment and were rooted in a new federal mapping tool, the Environmental Justice Index (EJI), which ranks communities across the US according to environmental health risk. Built by the CDC alongside the US Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) new Office of Environmental Justice, EJI is the first national geospatial tool to measure the cumulative impacts of social and environmental factors, including preexisting chronic health conditions and built-environmental 36 New York City is surrounded by highways, with many connecting in the South Bronx near vulnerable populations.
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