According to a new report launched in Australia this week, cycling – to work or for leisure – saves the health industry an estimated Aus $227.2 million a year. The report, Cycling: Getting Australia Moving, written by the Cycling Promotion Fund and funded by the Department for Health and Ageing, states that the savings come from the reduction in lifestyle diseases, such as obesity and diabetes, which are, according to the report’s editor, ‘reduced by about half in the population that participate in cycling’. In addition, the cost of traffic congestion fell by $63.9million a year, with an extra $9.3million saved each year in transport externalities (e.g. reductions in greenhouse gas emissions).
Cycling to work in Australia is on the rise, up from 50,648 in 2001 to 62,032 in 2006 – but only 20% of these are women, and the numbers are still low (just 2–3 percent of journeys to work) because of poor infrastructure and safety concerns. At the launch of the report, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, The Hon Peter Garrett AM, MP, announced a grant of $45,000 for the development of a national cycling training scheme to encourage more people to choose to travel by bike.
Sources: Cycling Promotion Fund (click here >>), The Canberra Times, 4 June, and Online Opinion (online journal - click here >>).