Abstract:
Integrating health-enhancing choices into transportation policy has the potential to save lives and money by preventing chronic diseases, reducing motor vehicle–related injury and deaths, and improving environmental health, while stimulating economic development and ensuring access to opportunity and to goods and services for all. This article reviews the links between transportation and health including safety, air quality, physical activity, equitable access, and noise. It also outlines five reasons transportation professionals should consider health impacts in their decision making including: availability of funding, responding to consumer preferences, climate change impacts on infrastructure, cost efficiency, and public health community support.
