Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Context: Public transit shows promise in increasing how much people walk every day. Walking to do every day activities such as shopping, going to work or school can be an easy way to do more physical activity. In turn, walking can help Canadians be healthier. Walking can decrease the chance of developing illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. Methods: To look at the relationship between public transit and walking, we used data that had been collected for the National Population Health Survey (NPHS) by Statistics Canada. We looked at the amount of walking done every week by people who lived near (less than 2000 meters) from a new rail public transit station such as subway, light rail and commuter train stations that were built in several Canadian cities between 1994 and 2010 compared to people in the same neighborhood who lived far from a new station (more than 2000 meters). Results: 414 people lived near a new station while 5,014 lived far. People who lived near the station had 20% higher odds of walking one or more hours per week than those who lived far from the station. The extent to which the neighborhood was 'walk-friendly' also seem to influence how much people walked. Our study also found that there seems to have been an increase in the amount of time Canadians spend walking for everyday purposes between 1994 and 2010. Conclusion: Canadians living close to a new rail stations seemed to walk more than those who lived far from a new station. However, it was difficult to measure changes in the amount of walking related to the opening of new public transit stations because most Canadians were walking more in general during the time of the study.