How Little Do Americans Walk?

In 1797, future king of France Louis Philippe I wrote, upon visiting the newly formed United States of America, that “Americans are in the habit of never walking if they can ride.” Writing in Streetsblog, Kea Wilson reminds us that, even today, “Americans walk far less for transportation than residents of other industrialized nations.”

A study published in Sustainability reveals that “Of the 11 countries in the sample for which data was available for all trip purposes, the U.S. tied for last with notoriously car-dependent New Zealand among the populations that walk for the lowest percentage of overall trips (12 percent).” By contrast, walking made up 20 to 26 percent of trips in the U.K, France, Germany, Finland, and Norway.

“The authors of the study, though emphasize that there’s nothing that makes America an inherently pedestrian-hostile country — and that by adopting the transportation policies of our more active peer nations, we can overcome what may feel like an insurmountable collective obsession with cars.”

The study provides three key takeaways:

• It’s not just sprawl. Although Americans like to blame the country’s size and spread-out cities for a lack of walking, the study showed that Americans drive more often than their counterparts in other countries even for the shortest trips.
• Low-income Americans are often forced to walk, but also benefit from the least robust pedestrian infrastructure.
• American pedestrians are being killed at higher rates than elsewhere, and the problem is only growing.