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Transportation Policies

Overview

Studies have shown that the prevalence of obesity in America and other affluent countries is directly related to lifestyle patterns. To change these patterns of behavior, we as individuals need to make choices about the food we consume and the energy we expend on a regular basis. At the same time, communities can help us change these behavioral patterns, by removing environmental barriers to healthy food choices and active lifestyles.

Regular activity is essential in preventing obesity and reducing obesity-related illnesses, such as diabetes and heart disease. To promote physical activity, public health professionals and policymakers are exploring ways in which our traditional transportation and pedestrian infrastructures can be revamped so people can meet recommended levels of physical activity.

Transportation strategies that promote active lifestyles include the development of safe bicycle paths, jogging trails and public swimming pools, tennis courts and ball fields; the passage of zoning rules favoring sidewalks in residential and commercial areas, traffic-free areas, and traffic patterns that encourage people to walk to school, work and shopping; measures to ensure safe streets, parks, and playgrounds; and incentives to encourage the public to use mass transit rather than private cars.

“Complete Streets” Policies

Historically, local planners and engineers have created roads with one use in mind: driving a car. “Auto-centric” road design can discourage active living, such as walking to the grocery store or biking to the park. A growing number of communities are asking their local planners and engineers to “complete their streets,” by planning, designing, upgrading and building road networks that are safe and accessible for drivers, pedestrians, public transit riders and bicyclists, regardless of age or ability.

Complete Streets policies help promote more active lifestyles, such as encouraging children to walk to school and seniors and people with disabilities to lead more active and independent lives.

They also improve safety; bolster economic growth and stability by providing efficient connections between residences, schools, parks, public transportation, offices and retail destinations; ease transportation problems; reduce costs by eliminating the need for expensive retrofits; and result in a cleaner environment.

Public health lawyers, working with public health professionals, city planners, and local stakeholders can help craft Complete Streets policies and related initiatives that meet a community’s transportation, safety, economic and public health needs. They can work within the community to ensure policy directives are clear, unambiguous, broad, and flexible and contain specific implementation steps, deadlines and accountability measures, such as reporting requirements. They can also help codify policies in statutes or ordinances.

Both at the local Complete Streets level, and at the federal level, public health leaders can make meaningful changes within a community’s environment that can help individuals break sedentary patterns of behavior and adopt more active lifestyles.

Select Resources

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity, Resources and Tools.
Complete Streets Coalition website. Compilation of resources, case studies, and useful information on adapting and enforcing Complete Streets policies.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Active Transportation: Making the Link from Transportation to Physical Activity and Obesity (2009).
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Physical Activity for Everyone Guidelines: How Much Physical Activity Do You Need? Physical activity guidelines, factsheets and other resources.

Select Research

Jennifer Dill, Bicycling For Transportation & Health: the Role of Infrastructure, 30 J. Pub. Health Policy S95 (2009) (describing the need for communities to develop more bicycle friendly infrastructures).
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Safe Routes to School Policy Report (2009) (promoting policies that encourage the construction and implementation of safe routes to school).
Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, A Resident’s Guide for Creating Safe and Walkable Communities (2008) (detailing ways in which communities can promote walkable streets to increase physical activity).
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Safe Routes to School State Network Project: 2007–2009 Final Report (Nov. 2009) (describing various state and local projects created through the federal Safe Routes to School program).
Safe Routes To School National Partnership, Safe Routes to School Improves the Built Environment (2008) (including case studies of several states that implemented safe routes to school programs).
Kristen K. Davison et al., Children’s Active Commuting to School: Current Knowledge & Future Direction, 5 Preventing Chronic Disease 1 (July 2008) (describing the benefits of promoting active commuting).
Marion Nestle & Michael Jacobson, Halting the Obesity Epidemic: A Public Health Policy Approach, 115 Public Health Reports 12 (2000).

Select Federal Legislation

Complete Streets Legislation

Complete Streets Act of 2009, H.R. 1443, 111th Cong. (as introduced in House on Mar. 11, 2009).
Complete Streets Act of 2009, S. 584, 111th Cong. (as introduced in Senate on Mar. 12, 2009). Both Acts require any states engaging in federally-funded transportation projects to create and enforce policies integrating safer and more convenient transportation environments for bicycles, pedestrians, and the physically disabled.

Safe Routes to School Legislation

Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-59, 119 Stat. 1144 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 23 U.S.C.). The purposes of this legislation was to make bicycling and walking to school safer and provide funding to states for school related infrastructure construction projects. This legislation created the federal Safe Routes To School Program.