Healthy streets mean healthy cities, healthy people

Jennifer Kent

Senior Research Fellow | University of Sydney

Dr Jennifer Kent is a Senior Research Fellow and Urbanism Research Lead at the University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning. Jennifer's research interests are at the intersections between urban planning, transport and human health. She specialises in combining quantitative and qualitative data with understandings from policy science to trace the practical, cultural and political barriers to healthy cities. Key issues examined to date include parenting and private car use, companion animals and transport, the links between health and higher density living, the interpretation of health evidence into urban planning policy, the health impact of extended commute times, and cultural and structural barriers to sustainable transport use. 

Challenging unhealthy transport systems through multi-modality - the case of car sharing

The way we travel can have both negative and positive effects on health, depending on the structure and function of the transport network. This presentation proposes that the way forward for a healthy transport system in Australia is, specifically, to transition away from the harms of private car use while still enabling equitable access. Further, it seeks to spotlight the need for alternative transport systems to promote multimodality, and highlights the role of car sharing as a key component and health promoting part of that system.
Private cars, and the economic, built and social structures that maintain them, are patently embedded in the injustices and health problems that shape and trouble modern life in cities. The private car is a quintessential expression of an individualised way of being mobile. Its various accommodations, from roads, to freeways, to parking lots and garages, dominate landscapes and lives in a way that is unjust and unhealthy. The political economy of car manufacture, its ongoing link to global oil production and supply, and the shackle that has become petrol prices, are further reflections and shapers of injustice and health in cities. At a personal level, private car dependency is associated with lifestyle diseases linked to physical inactivity, respiratory diseases associated with car generated emissions, and the health disaster imminent from human induced climate change.
While most research and practice in the health/transport space has its focus on specific car-less modes such as walking and cycling, a serious challenge to the private car, and shift towards healthier transport systems, will need to promote multi-modality. Carsharing is quiet but key component of this system, and it has health benefits. 

Over the past two decades, carsharing has become a mainstream transportation mode for over a million users worldwide. It is thus far demonstrating some success in efforts to reduce reliance on the private car. While the economic and environmental impacts of carsharing are well explored, research has not addressed the potential health benefits to be gained from this mode of transport. To fill this gap, a systematic review of literature providing evaluations of health outcomes associated with carsharing was conducted. A three step exclusion process was used and suitable papers subject to analysis. 

Notwithstanding the limits inherent to the data, the review finds that all studies demonstrated that carsharing reduced vehicle ownership and/or changed travel behaviour. This finding warrants a conceptualisation of health promoting transport as extending beyond walking, cycling and the use of public transport. A healthy and sustainable transport system will be multimodal, including options such as car sharing.

Ben Haddock

Future Mobility Lead | Arup

As the Future Mobility Lead for Arup in Australasia, Ben is a keen advocate for sustainable transport and is currently advising local and state governments on how to plan for future-focused healthy places.      

He is a Chartered Transport Planning Professional based in Western Australia with 20 years experience of managing and delivering future transport and energy projects around the world. 

A recognised industry leader in future mobility, energy, and transport decarbonisation, Ben has extensive knowledge of assessment in urban and rural settings and the analysis of future demands on transport networks, working through business cases, traffic management and mitigation to secure approvals and unlock the benefits of a cleaner future.  

A healthy and equitable mobility future

With a growing population, the need for urban environments to become safer, healthier places has never been more important. Where urban environments have been designed to serve primarily or even exclusively to private motor vehicle traffic, they can be made immensely safer and healthier for all users if they are designed to effectively serve pedestrians, public transport users, bicyclists, and other public activities. 

The presentation will explore Arup own research, grounded with actual projects with various local governments across Australia, that explores equitable outcomes in urban environments against growing pressure to install electric vehicle and mobility infrastructure in them. 

The presentation will also bring in further research into reimagined urban space that is future-focused and the benefits for everyone with talking points such as; 

- transport and health are directly linked, 
- that the economics of healthy choices work, 
- we need better resources for designers and decision-makers and what they could be, 
- how to bring lived experience to create an equitable mobility future.