Walking is the New Traveling

Over the past week, I have had a tough time with not driving my car around campus and instead walking around campus. I just started spring football practice and I am constantly tired and I feel like I am always in a rush. The upcoming weeks of school, I plan on walking everywhere and with this nice weather coming our way, I believe it will be much easier to accomplish this change in behavior. I will have to wake up earlier to get ready for classes so I have enough time to walk to class. It is tough sometimes living down at the Fishers because it is far from everything such as classes, food, and football practice. It is something that will be tough, but like I said, with the nice weather coming I will want to be outside. Also, with better management of my time I will not have to rush as much so I can walk everywhere. I do this behavior when I am in a hurry, stressed out, tired, and when friends ask me for a ride to class or football practice. Having a car and driving it is just much more convenient.

In the article “Walking, Cycling and Driving to Work in the English and Welsh 2011 Census: Trends, Socio-Economic Patterning and Relevance to Travel Behaviour in General” by Anna Goodman, it explains a study of who drives, walks, or cycles for their mode of transportation. The numbers are not shocking because I knew most people would drive instead of walk or riding a bike. In the article it says, “Unlike many health behaviors, it is more common for socio-economically disadvantaged groups to commute using physically active modes. This association is, however, weakening and may soon reverse for cycling. At a population level, commute modal share provides a reasonable proxy for broader travel patterns, enhancing the value of the census in characterizing background trends and evaluating interventions.” (Goodman, 2013) This helps explain the needs of people with their mode of transportation whether it is walking, cycling, or driving. The things that determine my less-than-sustainable behavior is thinking that one person can not make a difference. Yes that is somewhat right, but one person is a start and if everyone makes a personal commitment to try and walk or cycle to more places instead of driving, it will make an enormous difference and it will help reduce the carbon emissions and gas usage. The article addresses a barrier of this behavior. The barriers to changing this behavior is that people do not drive less because they do not perceive that it impacts the problem of climate change with the increase of carbon emission from the cars that they drive. Also, driving a car is just so much more convenient and to not have a car is tough to live because a person always needs to travel, whether it is going to the grocery store for food or driving to work.

It is a very tough behavior to change, but changing this behavior is a start and it will help reduce the carbon emissions and decrease the gas usage. I know I will not change the world, but if everyone did their share, it would help drastically. The article helps explain the need to drive and my goal is to not let myself get caught up in those needs and to try and suck it up and walk everyone on campus. This is great timing to change my behavior with this great weather coming towards us. Walking is the new traveling for me.

Goodman, Anna. “Walking, Cycling and Driving to Work in the English and Welsh 2011 Census: Trends, Socio-Economic Patterning and Relevance to Travel Behaviour in General.” (2013): n. pag. Lafayette Library Catalog: WAM Authentication. Public Library Science, 21 Aug. 2013. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.