Threat to walking and cycling a threat to health

Opinion: The new Government is taking a sledgehammer to measures we know protect health, such as drinking-water safety and smoking cessation, and now it’s undermining efforts to reduce harm from transport. The results will be predictable: rates of disease and early death in our communities, and more stress on our already overburdened health care system. Transport Minister Simeon Brown’s letter to councils this week, urging them to scale back walking and cycling projects is the latest blow. 

The health risks of smoking are well known, but a recent local study found that New Zealand’s car-dominated transport system actually creates similar levels of ill health and early death to tobacco use. Some of these deaths are the direct result of vehicle use: the 370 or so people who suffer violent deaths in road crashes. But most of these deaths are slower and less obviously related, from the host of illnesses (cardiovascular disease, cancers, dementia) caused by the air pollution and lack of exercise.

This is the cost of our extreme dependence on driving. New Zealand leads the OECD in cars per thousand people. According to the Health and air pollution in New Zealand 2016 report, air pollution from motor vehicles alone leads to 2247 early deaths each year, nearly 9400 hospitalisations for respiratory and cardiac illnesses (including 845 asthma hospitalisations for kids), and over 13,200 cases of childhood asthma in Aotearoa each year.

One way we can reduce the pressure on our health care systems is to tackle our high rates of preventable diseases and injuries. In transport this means making it easier and safer to walk, cycle and use public transport. Far from being a ‘waste of money’, as Brown has suggested in his letter to councils, walking and cycling projects are some of the ‘best buys’ in health. 

Walking is our most popular form of exercise, across all age groups, genders and ethnicities. Nearly 60 percent of adult New Zealanders get their primary exercise from walking. It’s also the ‘base layer’ or foundation of our transport systems, with almost all transport trips (including driving and public transport) involving some walking. In Wellington, over a quarter of all transport trips (27 percent) are made on foot. Walking is our cheapest and most equitable transport mode. If you doubt its importance, ask yourself if you’d rather be unable to drive for a week, or unable to walk.

Yet despite its critical importance to both our health and the effectiveness of our transport systems, walking is becoming less safe. Rising levels of traffic are making it harder and more dangerous to cross roads, and even to use footpaths (which, in New Zealand, cars too often cross). This has led to declining levels of walking among adults and kids. It’s also having a flow-on effect on our ability to use public transport. Walking and cycling are the foundation of our public transport systems. If you can’t safely walk or bike to a bus stop, you can’t catch the bus. We need to make walking safer (with raised crossings, better paths and so on) if we want to protect the walking people already do. It’s also essential if we want to reduce our carbon footprint.

Cycling is less common than walking as a form of transport, but again, it’s one of the most popular leisure exercises. Many just don’t want to do it in traffic, unprotected. Those who cycle for transport in New Zealand are 76 percent more likely to meet recommended levels of daily exercise, and 13 percent less likely to die early of a preventable disease. 

Allowing for the use of the bicycle, originally described as the ‘pedestrian accelerator’ (it’s essentially a souped-up form of walking), is one of the most powerful population-level health interventions you can fund. 

In the Netherlands, where 27 percent of trips are made by bike, it’s estimated that 6500 lives a year are saved by making cycling safe and easy for everyone, young and old. That is 6500 lives saved because of just one intervention. Compare that with another study that showed that 22 other population health interventions combined (including tobacco control, population-based cancer screening, and other road safety measures) save the Dutch an additional 16,000 lives a year.

But where we’re making cycling safer in Aotearoa, more people are getting on their bikes. Christchurch, which has almost finished its major safe cycling routes, has cycling rates ten times those found in Auckland; and cycling is something that is done across all socioeconomic groups – with numbers of female cyclists growing, too, as it becomes safer. 

The latest advice from the Climate Change Commission also identifies walking, cycling, and public transport as ‘best buys’ to reduce our emissions. Transport is our second biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. A New Zealand study concluded that for every dollar we spend on walking and cycling projects, we get at least $10 in benefits. This compares with major roading projects, which, if they are lucky, often only manage to scrape together a two to one benefit to cost ratio, because of the amount of additional pollution and disease they create.

And then there are the many mental health benefits of walking and cycling projects. People who walk and cycle generally know and like their neighbourhoods more, and have the highest travel satisfaction. Research also shows that switching from driving to active travel acts as an ongoing protective factor against depression. The walk or bike to school has traditionally played an important role in the emotional, cognitive and physical development of New Zealand kids: providing exercise, social connection, and the chance to practice independence. 

Kids who walk or bike to school still get more daily exercise than kids who rely on structured exercise at school; and they also have more advanced spatial and navigational skills. A large Auckland study found that 96 percent of primary school kids want to walk or bike to school – however, 50 percent are now driven, most often because of parental fears about road safety. We hope that in the new year, their teachers will encourage them to write a letter to our new transport minister.