Why walking matters
by Jenni Wiggle BEM, Vice-President of Living Streets Aotearoa
Like others in the walking world, I often find myself in conversation with people who have recently come to realise the role of walking in our everyday lives. For many, the importance of walking, and having enjoyable and accessible places to walk, only becomes obvious when their circumstances or access needs change.
Most recently I was talking with a new mother who was now navigating footpaths accompanied by a pram, whether heading to the shops or just getting out for some fresh air. We chatted about her experience crossing the road, how she was really noticing dropped curbs for the first time and her difficulties with uneven surfaces or narrow footpaths. For the most part the role walking plays in our lives seems to be invisible. Yet walking is our oldest form of transport. It is unique and important, but the positive role it can play in our day-to-day transport is too often overlooked.
Walking offers us so much. It reduces congestion and is pollution and emissions free. Walking is the door-to-door connector for all our journeys. It plays a key role in connecting to public transport, making it unsurprising to see walking placed as the highest priority by NZTA when providing for typical access to public transport. It is a significant transport mode for children and young people accounting for 25% of their travel trips nationally, and a quick and healthy way for us to move around our local urban areas. And there is increasing global evidence of how walking contributes to the retail economy.
Alongside the economic benefits from reducing congestion and increasing retail footfall, there are also economic gains from the significant health benefits associated with this active form of transport. Walking is widely recognised as reducing the likelihood and impact of many health conditions such as poor mental health, heart disease and diabetes. Particularly for older people, walking is a form of exercise accessible to everyone and helps reduce frailty and improves strength and wellbeing. All of which helps avoid the need for admission to hospital.
In a world that is full of fitness memberships and miracle cures, our earliest form of transport offers almost all of us a cheap, easy option for keeping ourselves physically and mentally healthy. We can all experience stress or anxiety and our digital world makes it harder to give our brains some space. The link between exercise and mental health is well documented, but we don’t need to sign up to a complex exercise regime to reap the benefits. All we need is find ways to build more walking into our day-to-day routines.
Just like in my recent chat with a new mother, or another I had with a colleague recovering from an operation, or seeing local teenagers heading to their bus stop, we all have different reasons for why we need to walk. Several times a week I walk 15 minutes to catch my local train to work. I am not a morning person, but I always feel mentally revived when I get to the station, my plans for the day already taking shape. Most people are unlikely to consciously view their day-to-day walking journeys as part of a transportation system, and for me personally that isn’t what matters. Walking is an integral part of our transport journeys and as such it continues to provide us with its benefits.