MOMENTUM 2017

Studies have shown that suburban living is leading to inactivity resulting in a rise of obesity leading to significant health issues where it is expected that children of today will not live as long as their parents. Globally the cost to the health system is anticipated to be in the order of $2 trillion dollars or amounting to 2.8 per cent of the global GDP every year and nearly as costly as smoking and war. The world health organization consider this to be a worldwide epidemic leading them to identify the major source of the problem as inactivity. Our world has changed where you don’t have to get out of your chair to do anything and our technology has made us addicts leading to sedentary behaviors along with the type of food we are consuming. How do we break this cycle and what can planning do to achieve this? A key element in solving the epidemic, identified by health professionals, is to design our communities to encourage active living. Consequently, the planning and engineering professions are being called upon to design communities that not only adopt active alternative modes to transportation and active living environments but also design them to be functional and attractive whereby the users want to use them. So how do we develop active transportation systems that are attractive and cost effective to construct? Nick Pryce will be presenting on the issues surrounding the epidemic we face, how planning is moving forward with addressing the issue. He will present project examples and share the challenges faced with implementation.