Friday, November 04, 2005

Physical Activity Engineering

by Julie Walton, Ph.D.

One good fallout from the recent spike in gas prices was the multitude of people moved to physically move.  Here in our Midwest city, more people availed themselves of heretofore sparsely-populated city transits, and our students began arriving on campus in small squadrons of bikes.  It was a surprising oxymoron that right here at our HPERDS department we quickly ran out of available bike racks, with students locking bicycles to any upright, immovable tree, fence, or light pole they could find.

Another fallout was that various area school systems, bludgeoned by the rising costs of bus transportation,  contracted busing out to bus companies.  Where was the conversation about finding safer ways for children to walk to school?  So, our children still ride to and from school.  Even in East Grand Rapids, which prides itself for nearly no busing, moms line up in their cars for 2 city blocks either side of the elementary and middle schools to drop off and pick up their children.  Of course, it’s no longer a necessity at their high school since most every student from sophomores on up drive their own cars.

It has gotten me to thinking…

about our city’s basic lack of any visible physical activity engineering master plan.  Why is it we have such poor physical activity corridors?  Maybe it’s because we live in a state that is highly dependent on the automobile, or because of our long snowy (cold too) winters.  Whatever the reason, we seem to have myriad past, present and future efforts, most of them generously supported by tax transportation dollars,  to improve our autoways, but not our pedestrianways, or bikeways (to coin a few new words). 

I like the idea of a walking school bus.  From what I understand, students from the farthest regions ride the bus as usual, but instead of driving them directly to school, students are dropped off en masse a few blocks away where, joining other closer-in kids, they would all effectively become a walking school bus.  Of course, this would take some adult supervision, but what a great way to start and end a school day.  For more information, see http://www.walkingschoolbus.org/

Still, it’s a cultural shift to begin to ask a community to reengineer its economic development, historic preservation, community design, traffic safety commission, county health department, and transportation department plans around sustainable walk-ability issues.

And where might the Church fit in?  I know of only a handful of people at my church who walk to services.  How about a walking church bus that picks folks up from commuter lots, drives to within 3 blocks of church, then drops parishioners off to walk together to the worship service?  I, for one, would much rather wear my tennies to church than pumps! 

I am reminded again and again of the pedestrian nature of Jesus’ ministry (excluding that short donkey ride).  What kind of walking ministries might we start?  Faculty and staff at Calvin College have been participating wholeheartedly this fall in an Apostle Paul Pedometer contest, and you would not believe the miles people are walking as they recreate Paul’s 3 missionary journeys (designed by Dr. Nancy L. VanNoord, http://www.calvin.edu/academic/pe/healthyhabits/ ).  We are also busy here trying to create a walking-based model for physical and cognitive training in senior citizens as a way to provide faith-based physical activity programs for the senior community that are safe, supervised, and affordable.

How do you at your institutions, and in your communities work together to build the social capital and physical activity infrastructure that enhances the community quality of life?  Are there ways we can begin to collaborate on programs and initiatives where we can keep MOVING forward in our desire to develop and foster physically active lives? 

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