Transportation and health: The evidence and the opportunities

Transportation planning decisions affect public health in various ways, including rates of traffic casualties, pollution exposure, physical activity and fitness, mental health, and access to medical services. Conventional transportation planning often overlooks or undervalues these impacts –and thus poorly considers health in transport planning.

One solution is improving public transportation service quality, encouraging public transport use, and integrating public transport into community development can support public health objectives, directly by reducing automobile travel, stimulating walking and cycling activity, and improving mobility for disadvantaged people; and indirectly by creating more accessible, multi-modal communities where people drive less and rely more on alternative modes. Encouraging non-motorized transportation and more comprehensive multi-modal planning is an important complimentary strategy.

This is a timely issue because transportation planning is undergoing a paradigm shift: a change in the way problems are defined and solutions evaluated. During the last century automobile travel grew, while the quality and use of walking, cycling and public transportation declined in many cities. With the upcoming reauthorization of the federal surface transportation bill, the opportunity to build on this paradigm shift to incorporate the consideration of health is vast.

This presentation discusses the relationships between mobility (the amount and way that people travel) and various public health factors including crash risk, physical activity and fitness, pollution exposure, mental health, affordability, and access to medical services. It discusses how health impacts can be incorporated into transportation policy and planning practices, and specific policy reforms that can help support public health objectives.