Changes needed to break inactivity cycle
Roading that promotes safe walking or cycling over ‘‘ludicrously short car journeys’’ will get people thinking, and changing their routines, a British public health consultant says.
Lucy Saunders has turned to transport planning to tackle obesity, the leading cause of illness and death in western countries including New Zealand.
She is in Palmerston North as the keynote speaker at the NZ Transport Agency-sponsored 2 Walk and Cycle conference which started yesterday.
Her Healthy Streets approach to dealing with the spaces between buildings aims to make it safer and easier for people to include healthy activity in their daily lives by cycling and walking, even walking to the bus stop.
She said the traditional public health approach to tackling ‘‘the physical inactivity crisis’’ was to tell people to do more sport, ‘‘and that has been fairly unsuccessful’’.
‘‘The way to help people is to change the everyday environment to make walking or cycling the easiest and most preferable way to get around.’’
Saunders said the main reason people did not walk or cycle was because it did not seem safe.
And the more time more people spent in their cars, stuck in traffic jams and delayed by congestion on the roads, the less likely they were to fit in some exercise or a visit to the gym.
Healthy Streets encouraged a range of changes to street layouts that meant people would consider alternatives to ‘‘ludicrously short car journeys’’.
Saunders said many of the solutions used in the areas of London with low-density housing would work in other, smaller cities like Palmerston North.
Among the changes were easy crossing points for pedestrians and cyclists, shade and shelter and places to stop or do something else mid-journey, making the streets places where people could comfortably pause, meet and interact with other people.
She applauded the effort Palmerston North had put into the conference, with patterns painted on the road and a range of placemaking features laid out in front of the Conference and Function Centre to make it more pedestrian-friendly.
‘‘If you make these small changes, people look at the street differently.’’
Saunders said she resisted defining people as cyclists, pedestrians, motorists or bus patrons, as that fuelled conflict.
She was more interested in people who might ride a bike or walk if it seemed like a safe, convenient choice.
Saunders said it needed a network approach to ensure vehicles were slowed down or discouraged from using high pedestrian and cycle areas without simply displacing traffic to other streets.
And in high-volume traffic areas, people walking or riding their bikes needed safe, separated alternative routes that joined up for their journeys.
About 200 people from around New Zealand and overseas are in the city for the three-day conference.