Bridging the Gap between Health and the Built Environment: The Triple Win Biking Project

As the leading causes of morbidity and mortality have shifted from infectious to non-infectious diseases for industrialized countries, chronic diseases, especially those linked to obesity and air quality have risen in priority for health officials within the US, nearly 100 cities exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ozone pollution, and climate change effects from increased greenhouse gas emissions will affect multiple health outcomes. Urban sprawl contributes to both health risks of obesity and air pollution, particularly regarding modes of transportation. Though the average car has an increased fuel efficiency, which directly effects emissions causing pollution and potentially leading to climate change, average number of miles driven has increased dramatically. Forty percent of automobile trips in the United States are shorter than two miles and over twenty-five percent are less than one mile-–easily walkable or bikeable. Therefore, we researched what the benefit of replacing shorter car trips with bicycle trips would be to: (1) global climate change mitigation from reduced greenhouse gas emissions, (2) improvement in local air quality and human health, and (3) improvement to personal fitness and human health. Urban design can influence societal activity patterns as well as environmental impacts such as air pollution. We examined the eleven largest cities in the Midwest and developed a health index for each city based on ability to replace car travel with bicycling, and thereby the impact on health and personal fitness, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.