Hauwa Ali
Have we ever thought of this? – Focusing solely on electric vehicles and technology is actually slowing down the path to zero emissions—it diverts resources and political will away from other quicker solutions.In reality, we also need to focus on the movement of people and goods!
Tackling the climate and air pollution requires curbing all motorized transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible.
Only by curbing all motorized transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possibly can we tackle the climate and air pollution crises—Dr. Christian Brand of University of Oxford andcolleague Jillian Anable opined in “The Climate Book”.
“Cycling and walking is cheaper, healthier, better for the environment, It is a key part of the solution to decarbonize transport.”
Transport is one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonize because of its heavy fossil fuel use and reliance on carbon-intensive infrastructure—such as roads, airports and the vehicles themselves—and the way it embeds car-dependent lifestyles. One way to reduce transport emissions relatively quickly, and potentially globally, is to swap cars for cycling, e-biking and walking.
As many as 50% of car journeys are of less than five km and could easily be replaced by cycling and walking. Electric bikes increase this range to 10 km or more. They have become more popular over the past few years as prices have come down. These bikes allow older people to cycle and help riders cycle in hilly areas. But they still provide physical activity.
Research have shown that people who walk, cycle or use e-bikes have lower carbon footprints from all their daily travel, including in cities where lots of people are already doing this. Strikingly, the carbon footprint for daily travel is up to 84% smaller for people who walk or cycle than for people who use other modes of transport. Emissions from cycling can be more than 30 times lower for each trip than driving a fossil fuel car, and about ten times lower than driving an electric one.
Research also shows that urban residents who switch from driving to cycling for just one trip per day reduced their carbon footprint by about half a ton of CO₂ over the course of a year, and save the equivalent emissions of a one-way flight from London to New York.
If just one in five urban residents permanently changed their travel behavior in this way over the next few years, we estimate it would cut emissions from all car travel in about 8%.
Walking and cycling to work linked with fewer heart attacks, longer life
People who cycle to work have a lower risk of dying, a New Zealand study has found.
The study, by researchers from the University of Otago, Wellington, the University of Melbourne and the University of Auckland, has just been published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
Lead researcher Dr. Caroline Shaw, from the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, Wellington, says people who cycled to work had a 13 percent reduction in mortality during the study, likely as a result of the health benefits of physical activity. There was no reduction in mortality for those who walked or took public transport to work.
Dr. Shaw says increasing “active transport’ is being promoted as a way of addressing health and environmental issues, but the association between different modes of transport, such as cycling, walking and public transport, and health outcomes has remained unclear.
The study found more than 80 percent of people in New Zealand traveled to work by car on census day, with only five percent walking and three percent cycling.
“There were gender differences in mode of travel to work, with two percent of women cycling compared with four percent of men, but more women walking or jogging (seven percent), compared with men (five percent). A higher proportion of younger people cycled, walked or took public transport compared with older people.”
Dr. Shaw says the census data provided no details about the physical intensity of the commute, so those who lived in the inner city and walked 200 meters to work were in the same category as those who walked briskly up and down a hill for 30 minutes to get to and from work.
Dr. Shaw says the findings lend support for initiatives to increase the number of people commuting to work by bike.
“Increasing cycling for commuting to work in a country with low levels of cycling like New Zealand will require policies directed at both transport and urban planning, such as increasing housing density and implementing cycling networks.”
While the study found no association between walking or taking public transport to work and a reduction in mortality, Dr. Shaw says there are other reasons to promote these modes of transport.
“Walking to work has physical-activity-related health benefits other than mortality reduction—including the prevention of cardiovascular disease and diabetes—and taking public transport has the benefit of emitting less carbon.”
Walking and cycling to work were associated with fewer heart attacks across 43 million adults in England, according to another national study.
Co-authored by Alistair and Jonny Brownlee, Olympic-medal winning triathletes and alumni of the University of Leeds, the research suggests that active travel could provide important health benefits.
In areas where walking or cycling to work were more common in 2011, the incidence of heart attacks decreased for both men and women across the following two years.
The researchers acknowledged that the big risk factors for heart disease are a lack of exercise, being overweight, smoking and diabetes.
After adjusting for these, the researchers found that active commuting was linked with additional health benefits in some cases. For women who walked to work there was an associated 1.7 percent reduction in heart attacks the following year. For men who cycled to work there was also an associated 1.7 percent reduction in heart attacks the following year.
The research, led by the University of Leeds, was published today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
What governments must do
What deters many people from cycling or e-biking is safety.Therefore, an important prerequisite for cycling is the availability of safe cycling infrastructure, including segregated cycling lanes.
Cities urgently need to create (more) safe cycling networks or free up some streets altogether for cycling and walking only. A recent German study using bicycle counters in 106 European cities showed that the 20 cities that had considerably increased their cycling network (on average by 11.5 km) during the COVID-19 pandemic and this saw an increase in cycling of 11%-40%, compared to those that did not.
Cycling has offered an alternative to cars and helps reduce emissions as confinement is eased, particularly as the high prices of some electric vehicles are likely to put off many potential buyers for now.
Cycling can contribute to tackling the climate emergency earlier than electric vehicles, while also providing affordable, reliable, clean, healthy and congestion-busting transportation.
To make this happen, cities urgently need to create (more) safe cycling networks or free up some streets altogether for cycling, walking and zero emission public transport only—as is starting to happen in cities around the world. This will not only benefit those who travel actively, but everyone who lives in cities.