Apparently official figures show that workers in London currently only walk 350 yards before they take a seat in a car, bus or train on their way to and from work. And that if this distance was expanded from 350 yards to 2km or 1.25 miles then that’s all it would take for everyone to meet the government’s post-lockdown goal and get that bit fitter and healthier.
According to experts it would also start to get us all into relearning the habit of walking instead of taking the car and taxis for all those short trips. Thereby having the added bonus of reducing emissions.
As an example, in London approximately one-third of private car journeys and one half of all taxi and Uber trips are of just over one mile in distance. So if everyone got into the habit of walking for all those short car and taxi journeys that were less than 2km/1.25 miles then that would make a massive difference to the amount of traffic on the road.
And, in order to help Londoners to achieve this objective of getting us all out of cars and taxis for short trips and getting us walking instead, Central London Footways will be launched on the 16th September. Volunteers have already tested attractive walking routes for us all to follow and they will continue to test more so that we can consult and follow around 10,000 free maps.
And if anyone has the excuse of saving time, let’s be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that the time it takes to walk a mile is just 20 minutes. And that’s probably about the same time it takes to travel by taxi or car in the busy London traffic.
So now there’s no excuse for Londoners. We just have to get out of the habit of jumping into a car or taxi for short trips and into the habit of walking and we can kill at least two birds with one stone.
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