THREAD: These days it's all the rage to talk about getting people out of their cars and onto the street to walk and cycle to their chosen destination.
That conversation is important, but it's also important to understand our baseline.
Luckily, folks (🤓) have found the data...
Let's start with walking.
On average, a person in the UK spends 4250 minutes a year walking.
Don't worry, we did the math (🤓) -- that's almost three full days of their lives!
And if you're a woman between the ages of 30-50 then odds are you walk even more than that. This cohort of our population take the most walks out of all of us.
Cycling is a different picture entirely.
Before coronavirus -- its safe to say we all had room for improvement.
On average, a British woman took just 8 trips by bike in 2018.
Considering 2/3rds of Brits think cycling is dangerous it's not a surprise
theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2….
And what about the most vocal of road users -- drivers.
Those who had access to a car averaged 1000 trips a year travelling an average of 7 miles per journey.
This is in stark contrast to those who don't have access to a car.
On average, they take less journeys -- taking only 714 trips in a year and they travel much smaller distances too -- averaging around 4 miles a journey.
But it's not so much what drivers do than who they are that is the most interesting.
The data shows that drivers are the wealthiest among us -- with half of the highest income bracket owning multiple cars while almost half of the poorest have none.
And what are drivers doing when they take out the car?
Odds are -- they're shopping.
65% of shopping trips were made by car or van in 2018. Only 25% were made by walking
What if we flipped that percentage?
Could you pledge to walk to the shops instead of drive for a week? A month? A year?
As a nation, we're already spending three days a year strolling about town.
As councils invest to make that experience even more pleasant, we can all explore ways to walk more and drive less.
Leaving the car at home when we head to the shops is a great way of doing that.
Want to read more about these facts (🤓)?
You can do so here: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
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