Further TALES from Dunedin

Day three of The Active Living and the Environment Symposium

The morning began with another plenary session. Celia Wade-Brown QSO, of Living Streets Aotearoa, reported some of the highlights of the Walk 21 conference that had been held in Bogotá, Colombia. She referred us to the Walk 21 Charter and encouraged us to sign it as individuals or organisations (www.walk21.com/chartersignature).

Living Streets Aotearoa was founded in 2001. Its current priorities are lower speeds for vehicle traffic; funding for walking; walking to and from school; and standards for walking infrastructure. Local targets are an important way to ensure adequate funding, and that it is spent appropriately. She said “It’s not just space, it’s movement. Walking is so efficient!” Citing an analysis by NACTO, she pointed out that at maximum capacity, about 8 to 9000 people per hour can walk along a footpath but private vehicles can only shift 600 – 1,600 hour in a lane.

Alexa Forbes, both working at Otago Polytechnic and a local councillor for Queenstown, spoke on Transport, environment and everything in Queenstown. Although Queenstown has only 30,000 residents, there are 2.5 million visitors each year, with 50,000-100,000 people present in the town each day. She described the vicious circle that occurs when people feel the need to be car-dependent through lack of affordable housing within the town and lack of other transport options, leading to more congestion and the adverse effects of cars on people and the environment.

This session ended with a talk by Prof Erica Hinckson, of Auckland University of Technology, on Citizen Science. Research has moved from being done for the people, to being conducted with the people; citizen science moves the research process on another step to being conducted by the people. She recommended the Stanford Healthy Neighbourhood Discovery Tool app.

After another networking refreshment break, the session on Urban Environment started with a remote presentation by Prof Shanthi Ameratunga from the University of Auckland, with colleagues from Massey University and Stantec Ltd. She pointed out that privilege matters. There are effects of power and of affluence on mobility and health. The oldest and healthiest participants in their Inclusive Streetscapes Project lived in the most affluent case study area. The researchers found that people with high levels of education, computer literacy, and understanding of systems were able to navigate public transport systems even if they used such travel modes only occasionally. However, those with less social power relied on family as an important source of support for their travel needs. Petrol costs and bus fares were challenging, as were obtaining usable information on routes and timetables.

Lutfur Rahman arrived and started his PhD programme at the University of Otago the day before the TALES symposium and presented his PhD proposal on his fourth day in New Zealand, which was very impressive! He plans to use BEATS Study data to model objective and subjective aspects of the built environment that are associated with walking and cycling to secondary schools in Dunedin. Data from the BEATS Study were also used by Tessa Pocock and co-authors, which found that adolescents’ perceptions of walking safety was the strongest correlate of active travel to school but other objective measures of the school neighbourhood environment were not significant predictors of active commuting to school. The session closed with a presentation about the Climate Safe House, working with a vulnerable homeowner to provide a warm, sae, efficient, and transportable eco-home that can be moved to a safer location if, for example, water levels rise.

The parallel session examined e-bikes and sustainability. Matt Shipman, of Greater Wellington Regional Council, has been providing training through the Pedal Ready Cycle Skills Programme. Matthew Jenkins reported on the experience of electric bike users in Dunedin. Their data, from a focus group, highlighted a number of positive and negative aspects of e-bike use, both personally for users and in the attitudes of other road users.

Sue Smith spoke about the five-week series Bike with Us, part of a Green Prescription programme in Napier and Hastings. Participants were taught to cycle on traffic-free routes. Bike with Us programme has now set up two regular cycling groups and five participants trained to become ride leaders. New friendships are important in providing support to build confidence and motivate each other to continue participating. Shannon McNatty told the audience about Education Outside the Classroom (EOTC) and how they had taught 11- and 12-year-olds through educational active travel trips once a week for six months, covering environmental, social, and physical learning objectives. In addition to increasing experiential learning and increasing physical activity levels, the programme encouraged new friendships, developed self-esteem, and enabled the students to support each other.

The importance of other people’s attitudes was highlighted to me last December, when four female friends, who usually ski with their husbands and children, shared a skiing lesson. They returned enthused, reporting that the two hours was filled with encouragement, support, and praise in place of the “come on, you’re keeping us waiting” that they were accustomed to.

After lunch, Sara Templeton, a councillor for Christchurch City Council, spoke on the difficulties in moving towards a sustainable 21^st century city. It takes time to consult and build the necessary infrastructure but many people oppose change, adding to the time it takes for behaviours to change. She gave examples of what is sometimes termed in public health ‘management by decibels’, where those who complain the loudest may be listened to more even if they are not representing the majority views. She presented factors that influence decision-makers at the political level and encouraged planners, designers, advocates, and experts to engage with politicians.

She told us that their ‘Share an idea’ project had results in more than 100,000 ideas! Christchurch has a legal requirement to institute a 30km/h zone in the central city, and then engaged on extending it as the city developed differently to what had been expected. Their surveys of people cycling have found hat 94% of people feel safer cycling on a cycleway (rather than on the general road). Of people surveyed when cycling:

• 50% were cycling to work;
• others were doing things that we might do in a day ie shopping, recreation;
• 40% were female;
• 15% would have used a car for that journey before the cycleways were built; and
• 43% would still have cycled but would have used a different route.

To end that session, the TALES participants were given a presentation about the key policy recommendations by members of the working group, followed by discussion with all those present on both the broad concepts and some specifics. The recommendations have now been finalised and the document is being prepared for publication in April or May. Watch this (and other) space(s)!