Your Health, Urban Planning and Bicycling

The American Medical Association has blacklisted a new cause of obesity in the US--poor neighborhood planning.

According to a recent AMA study, the United States is in the middle of an obesity epidemic. The usual culprits--high-calorie foods, television, personal computers, labor saving machinery--came as no surprise.

But wait, there's more! The study also found that car-oriented community design was just as detrimental to our health.

Decades of government support for highways and local roads--often at the expense of sidewalks and bicycle ways --has allowed car travel to replace walking or bicycling for even the shortest trips.

Cities and suburbs are now so auto-focused that people rarely leave their cars at all. Drive-thrus allow them to do their banking, buy their meals, and even pick up prescriptions without getting out from behind the wheel. Oceans of Asphalt

Those who want to get around by bicycle or a pair of walking shoes have a rough road ahead.

Major streets designed for car speeds are often too busy, dangerous and unpleasant. Subdivisions built with winding roads and cul-de-sacs make it difficult to find short, safe and pleasant travel routes. Huge parking lots in front of businesses create asphalt moats that deter bicyclists and pedestrians.

Bicyclists and pedestrians are simply made to feel out of place in most new communities.

Zoned out
Restrictive building codes have magnified problems for bicyclists and pedestrians. Cities and suburbs have created separate "zones" for schools, shops, homes and workplaces.

Zoning was originally intended to protect homeowners from the negative effects of smokestack industries. Now, these zoning laws also place compatible uses in different parts of town.

New schools are placed on the sidewalk-less edge of town. Nursing homes are put in the middle of corn fields. Convenience stores are placed at intersections of major highways.

The quick walk to the corner store has disappeared. "Dropping in" on grandma is a cross-country endeavor. Bicycling to school is out of the question. Why? Because the old way of building a community is now often illegal.

Growing Pains
The loss of walkable and bikeable places has had a direct effect on the exercise habits and waistlines of our citizens. Today, only 15% of American adults engage in a moderate amount of physical activity each week. That is down from 23% a decade ago.

What is the result of this lack of physical activity? More than half of US adults are now considered overweight; 22% are actually obese.

Adults are not alone in this weighty health problem. Other studies have found that 25% of kids between the ages of 6 and 18 are overweight. And one in eight is obese. That is twice as many overweight kids as in 1980.

Two Strategies on Two Wheels Clearly, this country is facing a major health crisis and needs a national strategy to help fight the battle of the bulge. This strategy must go beyond fad diets and quick fixes, however. It must include ways of fitting regular physical activity into everyone's daily routine.

One way of doing this is to encourage people to replace some of their shorter car trips with walking and bicycling.

Another is to start rethinking the way we design our communities. Let's get going.

Mike Kinde lives in Milwaukee with his family. He is a member of the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin board of directors.