The Alliance for Biking and Walking has published their 2012 Benchmarking Report.. The report is chock full of data on bicycling, walking, infrastructure, safety, and a ton more information gleaned from all 50 states and all 51 largest cities in the U.S. The data is available to be used to help plan things like traffic patterns, roads, sidewalks, bike paths, education, and safety. Here are some highlights:
Where bicycling and walking levels are higher, obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes levels are lower. Higher levels of bicycling and walking also coincide with increased bicycle and pedestrian safety and higher levels of physical activity. Increasing bicycling and walking can help solve many serious problems facing our nation.
As this report shows, the United States overall has great disparities between bicycling and walking mode share, safety, and funding. Twelve percent of trips are by bicycle or foot, yet bicyclists and pedestrians make up 14% of traffic fatalities and receive just 1.6% of federal transportation dollars.
It is also crucial that the United States look to other countries to see what mode share levels are possible, and how they have increased bicycling, walking, and safety. The United States lags far behind other countries and international cities in regard to walk and bike share of trips, safety, and public health.
As this report shows, the countries and cities with the greatest levels of bicycling and walking are also the safest places to bicycle and walk. These countries also have the lowest levels of obesity and report that prioritizing bicycling and walking is good for their economies.
Bicycling and walking also results in significant cost savings on health care spending. If just one out of every 10 adults started a regular walking program, the U.S. could save $5.6 billion in health care costs — enough to pay the college tuition of more than 1 million students. Thanks to bicycle infrastructure and programming, the City of Portland expects to see between $388 and $594 million in health savings by 2040. Cost benefit analysis show that as much as $11.80 in benefits can be gained from every $1 invested in bicycling and walking.
There is plenty more in the report. You can download it using the link above. It’s real important to note here that House Speaker John Boehner, along with Florida’s own resident career politician John Mica have an oil rich bill they are trying desperately to get passed through Congress. The bill if passed as is would eliminate ALL funding for mass transit along with bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and spend a pant load of money on oil exploration, drilling, and all the usual fossil fuel crap that we have been dealing with. You can pretty much guess who is pulling the purse strings on this one. Luckily the bill is not getting much support at the moment.
The bottom line is the report mentioned above, which was co sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control, AARP, and Planet Bike. It’s an excellent resource to use if you are fighting to build or improve the pedestrian and rider infrastructure in your community. It’s a long uphill battle to gain acceptance and widespread use of human powered travel. We are not going to give up our vehicles easily if at all. The coming war with Iran and certain to be higher fuel prices may change all that but for now we are in the minority. It’s nice to know that people like the Alliance for Biking and Walking are fighting for us.
Capt. Fritter
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