What do air pollution, traffic congestion, crumbling municipal roads and bridges, and your health have in common?

You can do something to help improve all of these things.

Crazy?  Not really.

Do you have to sign a petition?  Go to a rally?  Support a candidate?  Pledge money?  See your taxes go up?

Nope.  Just make a very small change to your behaviour.  That’s it.

Next time you have to go to the store for some milk, leave the car keys on the counter and walk.  It’s one less car trip.  One less car on the road, stuck in traffic, causing wear and tear on the road.  Too far to walk?  Get a backpack, dig your bike out of the back of the garage and ride to the store.  You walked or rode your bike and got a little exercise, kept your “carbon footprint” from getting bigger and were one less car on the road.

Every person is capable of changing their behaviour just slightly.  It doesn’t seem like a big deal but, think about it.  If everyone made just one less car trip each week that adds up.

Sometimes we don’t need to wait for the government to come in with a big fix.  Sometimes it doesn’t require an extensive study and a big bag of money.  Sometimes we just need to encourage ourselves, our family, friends and neighbours to make our own change.

There are other “side-effects” to making this little change.  Like, more people on the street, seeing each other, interacting, humanizing our neighbourhoods, our city.  More people out walking and riding their bikes means that they are exercising their bodies, making themselves a little healthier, lessening the burden on our very strained health care system.

Here are a bunch of facts and statistics that support riding your bike and they can apply to walking and to a lesser extent using public transit.  The point is you and I, our friends and neighbours all have the ability to make a change that will improve all our lives.

Tags: Alternative Transportation, community building, health, walkable