The humble footpath could be the answer to being more active, with new research showing regional Australians living in “walkable towns” travelled 75 minutes more on foot each week.
Big shock.
Walking more popular when walking convenient and comfortable. But seriously, stories about this are important, because councils clearly do need some imports to start doing better.
I feel as though, when councils build walking and riding infrastructure people just get on with the business of happily using it, but there’s a vocal minority of drivers who scream blue bloody murder at any encroachment on their god given entitlement to scream around the burbs at 10kmh over the limit.
Recently they narrowed a section of road here to accommodate nice new paths on either side. It’s already in a 40km/h tourism / beach front area. The usual idiots were apoplectic. There were even some “won’t someone think of the caravans” type diagrams showing the narrow points and how two caravans traveling opposite directions wouldn’t be able to go through at the same time or some such.
In the City Of Melbourne LGA, there was a group running last council elections called “Rip up the Bike lanes” - lead by a guy who was angry at bike infrastructure being around Lygon St because he thought they hurt the business of the cafes and restaurants there. Apparently bike riders never buy coffee or gelato.
There was a similar thing on Chapel Street with a business association leading protests against bike lanes because they said that changing parking to bike lanes would hurt their businesses (apparently bike riders never go shopping for overpriced clothing either).
There’s been fun studies that show shop owners tend to think more parking = more patrons, when the opposite is true
It’s astonishing, people walk more when they can walk.
What?! Next week you’ll be telling me that people in towns with bike paths are more likely to ride their bikes.
It’s a shame that this revelation probably still won’t change anything
Perhaps there should be a campaign encouraging people to adopt the ‘paseo’ (Spanish) or ‘passegiatta’ (Italian). This tradition of taking an evening walk after dinner is pleasant, healthy and sociable and particularly nice in Summer or the daylight-saving months for those outside of Qld. Country towns and walkable cities where people can stroll and greet each other would be good for both mental as well as physical health.
I know this is a very obvious headline to most people here, although I think it’s still worth publishing as there is a common pro-car talking point about rural areas being locked into personal vehicles. So improving the balance there is important too, showing that even in rural places there are benefits to improving ‘walkability’ of towns.