Bicycling & Walking in the U.S.
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In the next step, you'll explore studies and analysis on critical trends, important considerations and multi-faceted benefits of bicycling and walking.
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Numerous studies show a positive association between physical activity and public health, including improved physical health, mental health, and social stability...
National Complete Streets Coalition makes a clear point; "in the decade from 2003 through 2012, almost 68% of all pedestrian fatalities were on roadways funded in some part by federal money and designed in accordance with federal guidelines"...
The Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) studied the employment impacts of building pedestrian- and bicyclist-oriented facilities in the U.S. In 2011, the institute released a report that showed how a $1 million investment creates more jobs through building infrastructure specific to bicycling and walking than for road projects without these facilities...
Trips that are short distances are often the best opportunities to walk or bike (McKenzie, 2014). Accessibility to resources at a community level means a person can get from home to a job, school, and resources, such as a grocery store. The United States has spent billions of dollars on connecting roads for motorized traffic, but very little, in comparison, for pedestrian and biking traffic...
Facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists include sidewalks, bike lanes, and off-road paths, as well as shelters, bike parking, public seating, signage, road markings, and intersection signals. Providing these types of multimodal infrastructure encourages more people to bike and walk regularly...
Protections for all people on the road are most clearly defined by the laws and regulations legislators put into place. Legislation, such as Vulnerable Road User laws and Safe Passing laws, recognize that people walking or biking, particularly youth, seniors, and people with disabilities, are more vulnerable to injury or fatality in the event of a crash, compared to drivers of motor vehicles...
Several federal programs that fund bicycling and walking projects have been shown to have positive impacts on Americans’ health, safety, accessibility, and economy. The Safe Routes to School Program provided $1.2 billion during 2005-2012 and has been credited with increased rates of bicycling and walking to school, decreased rates of injury to those bicycling and walking to school, and lowered costs to tax payers for the health and transportation of children...
Engaging more people in biking and walking requires more than facilities, funding, infrastructure, and legislation. As street anthropologist, Adonia Lugo, PhD, writes: “Both inanimate infrastructures and living practices should be taken into account when analyzing urban mobility… People can be infrastructure. They create networks in which they hold places of meaning and value...
