Todd Littman of the Victorian Transport Policy Institute has released a fascinating study into the health benefits of public transport. Here’s a brief summary of the study and its findings:

This report investigates ways that public transportation affects human health, and ways to incorporate these impacts into transport policy and planning decisions. This research indicates that public transit improvements and more transit oriented development can provide large but often overlooked health benefits. People who live or work in communities with high quality public transportation tend to drive significantly less and rely more on alternative modes (walking, cycling and public transit) than they would in more automobile-oriented areas. This reduces traffic crashes and pollution emissions, increases physical fitness and mental health, and provides access to medical care and healthy food.

These impacts are significant in magnitude compared with other planning objectives, but are often overlooked or undervalued in conventional transport planning. Various methods can be used to quantify and monetize (measure in monetary units) these health impacts. This analysis indicates that improving public transit can be one of the most cost effective ways to achieve public health objectives, and public health improvements are among the largest benefits provided by high quality public transit and transit-oriented development.

Considering the enormous amount of money spent on the health system in New Zealand (over $13 billion each year), looking at effective ways in which to improve health can potentially be extremely cost-effective. Add to that all the lost productivity from people dying earlier, or people being less healthy and productive and we’re talking seriously big numbers here.

Some of the connections between transport and health are obvious. The more we drive the more at risk we are of dying in a car accident. The converse to that is, because public transport is generally extremely safe, the more we use public transport per capita, the lower likelihood we will have of dying in traffic accidents. Statistics from US cities play out this correlation fairly well: There are also links between greater use of public transport, walking and cycling, and lower rates of obesity. This is once again reasonably obvious – as all public transport users are also pedestrians: while cycling is likely to keep you fit and therefore healthier in that sense:

Research also suggests that obesity rates tend to be inversely related to use of alternative modes (walking, cycling and public transit), as indicated in Figure 12. Rundle, et al. (2007) found that New York City residents’ Body Mass Index (BMI) ratings tend to decline significantly with greater subway and bus stop density, higher population density, and more mixed land use in their neighborhood.

Smart growth community design provides health benefits, particularly for children by encouraging physical activity (The American Academy of Paediatrics 2009). Residents of smart growth, multi-modal communities tend to walk more and have lower rates of obesity and hypertension than in sprawled areas (Ewing, et al. 2003). Frank, et al. (2010) found that residents of more neighborhoods with more and better transit service tend to walk significantly more and drive significantly less than residents of more automobile dependent neighborhoods. Research by Sturm (2005) found that, accounting for demographic factors such as age, race/ethnicity, education and income, the frequency of self-reported chronic medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension and cancer increased with sprawl (Sturm 2005). Overall, 1,260 chronic medical conditions are reported per 1,000 residents; each 50-point change toward less sprawled location is associated with 96 fewer conditions. For example, shifting from automobile-oriented San Bernardino, California to transit-oriented Boston, Massachusetts would reduce 200 chronic medical conditions per 1,000 residents, a 16% reduction.

Another interesting link between public transport and better walking or cycling conditions is that a good public transport system makes it possible to remove many cars from city street, narrow down roads of pedstrianise them completely: which has huge benefits for walking and cycling. But critically, at the same time the good quality public transport will enable the city to keep functioning. It allows the best of both worlds.

I seriously do see the day when the Ministry of Health funds cycleways.

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2 comments

  1. This is a very interesting issue but one has to be very careful with health costs as they are inherently difficult to quantify.
    Historically in NZ there have been some attempts to document/quantify/assess the “full” impact of certain urban features (transport, urbanism, etc) but they almost always fall short because they overlook one thing or another and that comes from the isolation in which some researchers found ourselves.
    Here is a new research initiative (http://totus-external.wikidot.com). Within this project we’re trying also to get people, who don’t normally talk to each other, to make their work complementary such as transport engineers, traffic modellers, air quality scientists, public health professionals, energy researchers …

    We’re still gathering what information is around and identifying “who have been doing what” so any contribution will be most welcome!

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