If Health Matters Integrating Public Health Objectives in Transportation Planning

This paper investigates how transport policy and planning practices would change if public health objectives received greater priority. Conventional transport decisionmaking focuses on some health impacts but overlook others. It gives considerable attention to per-kilometer vehicle crash risk and pollution emissions, but overlooks the safety and pollution problems that result from increased vehicle mileage, and the negative health impacts resulting from less physically active travel. As a result, transportation agencies tend to undervalue strategies that reduce total vehicle travel and create a more diverse transport system. Various mobility management strategies are described and their impacts on traffic safety, pollution emissions and physical activity are evaluated. This analysis suggests that giving greater priority to health objectives in transport planning would reduce roadway and parking capacity expansion and increase support for mobility management strategies, particularly those that increase walking and cycling.