Public Health
Streetsblog Basics
Memo From Massachusetts: 25 MPH Speed Limit Would Save Lives
Researchers in Massachusetts have concluded that lowering the default speed limit on local roads from 30 to 25 mph would save lives and yield big public health benefits. Even without additional traffic calming measures, a lower speed limit on its own would prevent 2,200 crashes, 1,200 injuries, and 18 fatalities in the state of 6.6 million, according to an analysis of a 25 mph bill considered by the Massachusetts legislature last year. These numbers should be on the minds of New York legislators, who have the potential to save lives with a 25 mph bill of their own.
June 6, 2014
How Road Planners Fail Neighborhoods
Why do neighborhood groups -- especially in low-income areas -- have such a hard time influencing the design of major road projects? An interesting case study from the University of Colorado-Denver sheds some light.
June 4, 2014
More Walking and Biking, Better Health: New Evidence From American Cities
New data from the Alliance for Biking and Walking's 2014 Benchmarking report bears out the notion that people tend to be healthier in cities where walking and biking are more prevalent.
April 17, 2014
Boston Doctors Now Prescribing Bike-Share Memberships
The newest tool for doctors in the fight against obesity? That's right: Bike-share.
March 28, 2014
Poor NYC Neighborhoods “Less Conducive to Walking” Than They Appear
A fact sheet [PDF] released by the city's health department today makes the case that New York City's walkability contributes to the health of residents -- but a deeper look into the research shows that not all New Yorkers are benefitting equally from walkable neighborhoods.
February 12, 2014
What Sets Apart the Places Where People Walk More?
A lot of research has shown a link between living in a walkable community, active transportation habits, and better health outcomes.
February 6, 2014
For One Reckless Driving Survivor, “Life Looks a Lot Different Than Before”
Traffic fatality numbers usually get the headlines, but as a measure of how safe or dangerous it is to walk and bike, injuries are the more stable metric. Since 2003, according to state DMV data, an average of just under 14,000 people were injured by motorists while walking and biking in the city each year.
January 14, 2014
What Should Doctors Do to Prevent Traffic Deaths?
When cars first became a common presence in American cities, doctors were shocked by the carnage. In 1925, editors of the New England Journal of Medicine called the bloodshed caused by motorists "appalling" and lamented children's loss of life as "a massacre of the innocent." The sense of urgency was still detectable a few decades later. In a 1957 report, Harvard researchers called the public health threat posed by automobiles a “mass disease of epidemic proportions.”
January 13, 2014
TED Talk: OKC Mayor Mick Cornett on Designing a City for Fitness
I got to know Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett last year, when I interviewed him at the annual meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors. We talked about his realization that he and his constituents (generally speaking) were obese, and how he stood in front of the elephants at the zoo on New Year's Eve six years ago and announced that the city was going on a diet. He set out to have the residents of Oklahoma City lose a million pounds -- and the city achieved it.
January 6, 2014
The Health Care Cost of Traffic Crashes, and More Ped Injury Summit Tidbits
Here is more from last week's pedestrian injury summit at Elmhurst Hospital.
December 16, 2013