Public Transit: Health, Safety, Ecology
Public transportation not only lowers our impact on the environment, a new report says, it also has statistically significant benefits for public health and safety.
Brit Liggett at Inhabitat reports some interesting findings from the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). Namely, that people in communities with extensive public transportation networks live longer (for reasons of both health and safety) than people in automobile-dependent communities.
“Use of public transit simply means that you walk more which increases fitness levels and leads to healthier citizens. More importantly, increasing use of public transit may be the most effective traffic safety counter measure a community can employ,” noted APTA president William Millar. Apparently communities with vast public transportation networks don’t just live longer because of the exercise — they’re also less likely to be the victim of a fatal auto accident. The traffic fatality rate in the Bronx, New York is four in 100,000 contrasted by the traffic fatality rate in auto ridden Miami, Kansas which is 40 in 100,000.
Not to get too Jesuit on you, but this is an interesting case for a kind of good design synergy: it’s a case where one good design strategy (here, for a city) yields several seemingly unrelated benefits.
| Tagged with: | Design Ethics, Ecology, Health, Safety, Transportation |
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