Maybe not literally impossible, but inconvenient at best, and tragically dangerous way too often. But surely a big one is that, for most Americans in most places, walking – that most basic and human method of movement, and the one most important to our health – is all but impossible. I suppose there are a number of reasons why we don't walk very much, particularly compared to residents of other countries. (Transit comes in second at 26.5 percent.) Yet research out of Portland State University on "commute well-being" finds that bicycle commuters enjoy their trips to work the most, and those who drive alone enjoy their commute the least. A slim majority of Americans drive alone to work, which also isn't exactly breaking news. We are also dead last in bicycling.Īccording to census data, the share of workers who commute to work by walking in the US is a measly 6.5 percent bicycling adds another 1.3 percent. Speaking of cold, even the Canadians walk more than we do. The rates for Britain and even notoriously cold and dark Sweden were substantially higher than those for the US.
In particular, only 34 percent of Americans reported walking to destinations (jobs, shopping, school, and so forth) "often" or "all of the time." Spaniards and Germans walk about twice as much. In 2012 we Americans came in dead last on both indices, and it wasn't close.
Periodically, National Geographic publishes a 17-nation "Greendex" study on, among many other things, transit use and walking. This won't be breaking news to most readers, but Americans don't walk very much. (Today's article is excerpted and adapted from the 2014 book People Habitat: 25 Ways to Think About Greener, Healthier Cities, distributed by Island Press.