[Source: Infrastructurist.com]

Good thing walking isn’t an Olympic sport, because a paper in this month’s Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercisesuggests that the United States isn’t very good at it. Using pedometers to collect data on 1,136 Americans, researchers found that they averaged 5,117 steps a day. (A mile is roughly 2,000 steps.) Meanwhile Australians averaged 9,695 steps a day, the Swiss clocked in at 9,650, and the Japanese puttered about at 7,168 paces.

The report’s lead author, David R. Bassett of the University of Tennessee, blames America’s poor performance on its auto obsession and lack of public transportation:

“People do have to exercise,” he said. “But our overall environment does not lend itself to promoting an active lifestyle.”

[…]

Using Census data, Freemark charts how people got to work in America’s 30 largest cities between 2000 and 2009. We’ll focus on changes in the percentage of people walking to work during this time, although the chart compares all types of transportation modes:

• All cities experienced a slight increase in commuter walking, at 1.8 percent
• Cities without rail had a 2.7 percent decrease
• Cities with rail but no major new rail investments saw a 1.7 percent increase
• Cities with major new rail investments jumped 4.2 percent

[…]

Be sure to check out the whole article here.