Hidden Health Costs of Transportation Policy

Speakers (l-r): Larry Frank, Andrea Hricko, Thomas Gotschi, and Georges Benjamin

Hidden Health Costs of Transportation Policy: Saving Lives and Dollars

On December 3, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) held a briefing to examine health impacts and costs associated with transportation in the United States. The briefing addressed how federal policies regarding transportation infrastructure, in addition to policies concerning vehicles and fuels, can play an important role in improving public health and reducing health care costs. Panelists included:

• Lawrence Frank, PhD, Professor, Sustainable Transportation Program, University of British Columbia
  Presentation (pdf format)
• Andrea Hricko, MPH, Associate Professor, Preventive Medicine Program, University of Southern California
  Presentation (pdf format)
• Thomas Gotschi, PhD, Director of Research, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
  Presentation (pdf format)
• Georges Benjamin, MD, Executive Director, American Public Health Association
  Presentation (pdf format)

Click here to view a summary of Lawrence Frank's research on health and transportation

Click here to read the executive summary of a report on SMARTRAQ, Strategies for the Metro Atlanta Region’s Transportation and Air Quality

Click here to read a commentary by Lawrence Frank and Sarah Kavage entitled Urban Planning and Public Health: A Story of Separation and Reconnection

Please click below to view papers by Lawrence Frank and various co-authors:
A Study of Land Use, Transportation, Air Quality, and Health (LUTAQH) in King County, WA
The Urban Form and Climate Change Gamble
Linking Objectively Measured Physical Activity with Objectively Measured Urban Form: Findings from SMARTRAQ
Urban form, travel time, and cost relationships with tour complexity and mode choice
Many Pathways from Land Use to Health: Associations between Neighborhood Walkability and Active Transportation, Body Mass Index, and Air Quality
Urban Form Relationships With Walk Trip Frequency and Distance Among Youth
Obesity Relationships with Community Design, Physical Activity, and Time Spent in Cars

To download Rails-to-Trails' Active Transportation for America report on benefits from bicycling and walking, including the health benefits presented in the briefing, visit www.railstotrails.org/ATFA.

Briefing Highlights

• America is at a transportation crossroads. Americans live far from their jobs, infrastructure is crumbling, and we face risks from climate change and our dependence on foreign oil.
• Poor transportation policy creates a preventable health crisis. Policy should address four key areas: built environment, safety, research, access and equity.
• Regional air quality assessments miss localized exposure to pollution “hotspots” such as highways, ports and railyards.
• A University of Southern California study found that living close to traffic brings increased risk of asthma and respiratory symptoms including reduced lung function in children.
• Transportation officials need to address impacts of traffic-generated pollution by increasing buffer distance between highways and nearby homes and schools, reducing traffic volume, improving access to mass transit, and making smarter land use decisions.
• The report Active Transportation for America quantified the benefits of bicycling and walking, including $400 million in annual fuel savings.
• Currently, only 48 percent of Americans get the recommended 30 minutes of moderate exercise on most days; active transportation (walking and biking) could increase that figure.
• Travel behavior is modifiable. Peak-hour congestion pricing can be used to discourage driving, and the revenue can be used to build "complete streets" that accommodate different transportation modes. Other pricing mechanisms such as distance-based ("pay-as-you-drive") insurance would provide similar incentives.
• Location efficient mortgages would help people afford property near public transit.
• Impact fees on new development should be distance based, the further out the development the higher the impact fees.

Background

The transportation sector is associated with multiple risk factors for public health. Exposure to air pollution from vehicles has been linked to increased mortality, cancer, lung ailments, and other health problems. Limited options to walk or bike have been shown to be a factor in obesity cases, which have reached epidemic proportions in the United States. Many of these impacts, asthma and obesity in particular, disproportionately affect children.

Recent studies and an emerging body of research have documented local, regional and national health impacts associated with our transportation system – adding costs to the national health care bill estimated in the billions of dollars. In addition, climate change, driven in part by carbon emissions from the transportation sector, is projected to exacerbate a variety of public health concerns.

Upcoming federal transportation legislation and infrastructure provisions in economic stimulus legislation are important opportunities to avoid and minimize these public health impacts and costs—particularly in an era of rising health care costs that have devastated many household budgets and threaten to overwhelm the federal budget.