# Modeling the Health Benefits of Superblocks across the City of Los Angeles
## 2 Materials and Methods  
### The LA Superblocks Model  
The first two Barcelona Superblocks were built to remove cars and provide space to pedestrians in the El Born (1994) and in the Gracia (2005) neighborhoods, respectively. The recent Barcelona Superblocks plans initially aimed to merge clusters of nine \"old\" blocks defined by the 19 th century urban planner [PERSON] in a 3 \(\times\) 3 gridded pattern, but in practice the Superblocks include larger areas to simultaneously support regional mobility and local traffic reduction [19]. The current plan envisages 503 Superblocks, stretching \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Air Pollutant Reduction** & **Acronym** & **Unit** \\ \hline Sulfur dioxide removed annually by tree cover & SO2 AQYr & kg/yr \\ Nitrogen dioxide removed annually by tree cover & NO2 AQYr & kg/yr \\ Ozone removed annually by tree cover & O3 AQYr & kg/yr \\ Particulate matter [PM2.5] removed annually by tree cover & PM25 AQYr & kg/yr \\
**Health Benefits** & **Acronym** & **Unit** \\ \hline Hospital admissions avoided due to sulfur dioxide removed by tree cover & SO2 HoSI & cases/yr \\ Hospital admissions avoided due to nitrogen dioxide & NO2 HoSI & cases/yr \\ removed by tree cover & O3 HoSI & cases/yr \\ Hospital admissions avoided due to particular matter (PM2.5) removed by tree cover & PM25 HoSI & cases/yr \\
**Economic Benefits** & **Acronym** & **Unit** \\ \hline Value of hospital admissions avoided due to sulfur dioxide & SO2 HoSV & \$/yr \\ removed by tree cover & NO2 HoSV & \$/yr \\ Value of hospital admissions avoided due to nitrogen dioxide & NO2 HoSV & \$/yr \\ removed by tree cover & O3 HoSV & \$/yr \\ Value of hospital admissions avoided due to ozone removed & PM25 HoSV & \$/yr \\ by tree cover & PM25 HoSV & \$/yr \\ Value of hospital admissions avoided due to particular matter & PM25 HoSV & \$/yr \\ (PM2.5) removed by tree cover & & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Air pollutant reduction, health benefit and economic benefit indicators. across the City of Barcelona, with varying sizes and layouts in addition to the square blocks measuring 400 m per side in the center of the city. For a highly populated and diverse city like LA, we chose Superblocks to both fit the City of LA's ongoing initiatives to promote safe and accessible streets, along with 3 \(\times\) 3 blocks, and more importantly the city's goals and plans for physical development, as laid out in the City of LA's Mobility Plan 2035 and the City of LA's General Plan. Superblocks aim to give preference to pedestrian traffic in the interior public spaces and limit motorized traffic to residential cars, emergency service vehicles, delivery vehicles and other occasional vehicles in special circumstances. The normal motorized traffic circulates around the perimeters of the Superblocks. In order to assure that none of the proposed Superblocks would interfere with the city of LA's arterial roads, we defined two rules. The first was that Superblocks cannot contain any arterial streets designated by the city's General Plan Circulation System and the second rule specified that the Superblocks must be surrounded by arterial streets to facilitate traffic circulation and minimize traffic congestion. The streets classified as Boulevard I, II and Avenue I, II, III by the updated Street Standard Plan S-470 of the LA Bureau of Engineering were considered as arterial roads. The Barcelona Superblocks model was invented under the city of Barcelona's Action Plan, by which the street blocks to be included were chosen through a participatory process with the neighborhood associations and residents. The LA's Mobility Plan 2035, as one important element of the City's General Plan, laid out a policy foundation for achieving a transportation system that balances the needs of all road users and introduced an Action Plan that included a coordinated series of actions the city hopes to take over the long-term to accommodate all road users.