Active travel programs
VicHealth supports and encourages the use of non-motorised travel between destinations. Active travel is just one way of incorporating physical activity into daily life.
VicHealth has explored the barriers to active travel for children and adults. The most common barriers preventing children walking to school are:
- parents’ perceptions of stranger danger
- traffic concerns
- neighbourhood crime.
VicHealth supports many initiatives that promote active and safe travel to school, as well as supporting changes to school travel patterns.
Victoria Walks
VicHealth funds Victoria Walks because walking is a great way of increasing physical activity and combating obesity, traffic congestion, pollution and a host of preventable diseases. Victoria Walks seeks to get more Victorians walking every day, by creating more walkable environments.
Victoria Walks focuses on developing strong, vibrant and supporting neighbourhoods where people can – and do – choose to walk wherever possible. This is done through a range of events, such as ‘Walk the block’, ‘Step up at work’ and ‘ Victoria Walks to School’.
Victoria Walks also provides resources and support to communities to make their neighbourhoods more connected and walking friendly.
Streets Ahead
Various studies have shown that the more time children are able to spend outdoors, the more they are likely to be physically active. In 2008 VicHealth made a three-year investment in the Streets Ahead program. Targeting children aged four to 12 years, Streets Ahead aimed to create environments that increased children’s active travel and independent mobility in all aspects of their local community life, with a focus on travelling to and from school.
Streets Ahead involved six Victorian local government areas facing high levels of social disadvantage and health inequalities. Each local council targeted a cluster of three or four primary schools.
The combined experience of the six projects over three years yielded valuable insights. These included a more refined understanding of barriers and enablers to increasing physical activity in children, especially in disadvantaged communities, as well as the strengths and challenges of a council-based program model.
>> Read the Streets Ahead Program Evaluation Report 2008– 2011