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Active Travel in Germany and the US

This article by Ralph Buehler, John Pucher, Dafna Merom and Adrian Bauman was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in September 2011. It reports on their study that looked at the contributions of daily walking and cycling to recommened physical activity levels in the US and Germany. It concluded that daily walking and cycling can help a large proportion of the population to meet recommended physical activity levels.

The study found that between 2001/2002 and 2008/2009, the proportion of “any walking” was stable in the U.S. (18.5%) but increased in Germany from 36.5% to 42.3%. The proportion of “any cycling” in the U.S. remained at 1.8% but increased in Germany from 12.1% to 14.1%. In 2008/2009, the proportion of “30 minutes of walking and cycling” in Germany was 21.2% and 7.8%, respectively, compared to 7.7% and 1.0% in the U.S. There is much less variation in active travel among socioeconomic groups in Germany than in the U.S. German women, children, and seniors walk and cycle much more than their counterparts in the U.S.

Even without changes in land use, which take time, there is considerable potential for increasing walking and cycling in the U.S. In 2009, 27% of all trips were shorter than 1 mile in the U.S., but only 36% of those short trips were made by walking or cycling. By comparison, Germans walked or cycled for 70% of trips shorter than a mile. The lack of basic walking and cycling infrastructure in many American cities and suburbs helps explain why even short trips are made by car. Providing safe and attractive sidewalks, crosswalks, and bikeways is the fırst step in facilitating active travel.

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