Travel motivators in regional cities: How do we get people active when it is so easy to drive? Trevor Budge, City of Greater Bendigo Strategy Manager

Travel motivators in regional cities Bendigo’s Active Living Census provided an amazing 17,500 responses. What do the results tell us about the aspirations of our residents and how to build a liveable regional city. Context – Healthy Together – Connecting Greater Bendigo – Integrated Transport and Land Use Strategy - ITLUS

Active Living Census 2014 Purpose & Method PURPOSE To help prioritise allocation of council funding To better understand infrastructure needs To measure current physical activity, recreation and health behaviours and trends To enable evidence based planning and provision of services. METHOD Hard copy surveys sent to all 49,500 residential households. Online version also available. Promoted through an advertising campaign. 17,437 completed surveys

Active Living Census 2014 Summary Findings – Adults’ Health SUBJECTIVE HEALTH RATING 45.5% of Greater Bendigo adults rate their health as Excellent or Very Good HEALTH BEHAVIOURS 46.8% meet fruit dietary guidelines 9.5% meet vegetable dietary guidelines BARRIERS TO FRUIT & VEG CONSUMPTION: Personal preference 24.5% Time Poor 19.8% The guidelines 18.4% Cost 14.6% HEALTH RISK BEHAVIOURS 12.8% smoking rate 15.9% of adults report drinking at levels that put them at short-term risk of alcohol-related harm

Active Living Census 2014 Summary Findings – Adults’ Physical Activity 58.3% are motivated to do more physical activity Barriers to participation: 46.6% exercise 4 or more times per week Most popular activities:

Active Living Census 2014 Summary Findings – Facility usage Over 90% of residents had used at least one recreation facility during the previous 12 months

Active Living Census 2014 Summary Findings – Facility usage Active Living Census 2014 Summary Findings – Reasons for using… Off-road walking and cycling tracks Open Spaces

Active Living Census 2014 Summary Findings – Improvements to open spaces The majority of respondents made no suggestions for improvement to open spaces. Those that did most often suggested:

Active Living Census 2014 Summary Findings – Children Children are in good health. Eight-in-ten (80.3%) reported their health as ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’. 57.8% children meet fruit consumption guidelines Compared with 46.8% adults 7.6% children meet veg consumption guidelines Compared with 9.5% adults Children are more likely than adults to report exercising 4 or more times per week. Children use local facilities at higher rates than adults

Active Living Census 2014 Accessing the data FULL REPORT SELECTED FINDINGS FACTSHEETS Detailed report addressing all findings. Includes data tables and detailed analysis. Designed to be highly accessible. Findings collated according to age, location and activity type. Children and seniors Suburbs and towns Top 20 most popular activities

Long Gully Splash Park Heathcote Fitness Stations Canterbury Park Free bike parking at events Play in your park Connect with cooking Active Living Census 2014 Aligning inititiatives with the ALC 2014 findings

City of Greater Bendigo – 25% Public Land - Almost all Forest Unparalleled opportunity to meet the bushwalking demand.

Active Living Census 2014 Next steps with the Census Council endorsement Council support ALC as the leading preventative health document within the organisation Council report and adoption Media Launch Webpage goes live Marketing campaign Engagement

What is Connecting Greater Bendigo: ITLUS? Strategy that sets out the framework and direction for:  an integrated approach to transport and land use planning through strong urban planning, focus on health, community engagement, targeted behaviour change;  reducing our reliance on cars;  making the best use possible of the available infrastructure, including road space, buses, walking and cycling and rail, to meet capacity demands; and  being open to exploring opportunities to do things differently.

The vicious cycle of the ‘business as usual’ approach Continuing ‘business as usual’ in responding to increasing traffic and the growing need for housing: Does not reduce growth in traffic volumes Does not make economic sense Threatens the ‘country town’ and ‘city on the forest’ feel of Bendigo Does not tackle growing health issues We now know that cities that pursue business as usual never resolve their congestion, health, community and environmental problems

ITLUS at a glance

ITLUS is not about huge changes It’s about making small behaviour changes and doing things smarter. Traffic volumes are growing about 2% per annum. If 4% of all trips each year are done using walking, cycling or public transport we can progressively reduce the reliance on cars. 4% of trips for the average household represents about 3 trips per week CoGB, Bendigo Bank, La Trobe University and Bendigo Health leading by example - one day per week each employee will walk, cycle, car share or use public transport to get to work – that will take 1,000 cars off the road each day. The cumulative impacts of relatively small changes will be profound

Greater Bendigo’s percentage of overweight or obese persons is the highest in the state

Strengthening Partnerships Local schools TAFE

Key directions shaping the final strategy ITLUS proposed to be built on 6 principles – total package 1.The transformative impact of a targeted series of small incremental steps 2.Targeted improvements to the road, walking, cycling, bus network, railway stations, activity centres and school travel 3.Partnerships – major employers/schools – as travel behaviour change agents – include link with health benefits 4.Focus on the health/wellbeing benefits of individual and family/household changes to healthy active travel modes 5.Integration of transport and land use ‘10 minute neighbourhoods’, development around activity centres including train stations, bus route hubs and corridors 6.We can’t ‘solve’ “traffic congestion” by always building/widening roads - shift to better use of our total

Embracing transformative change Stepping away from the “business as usual” model Greater Bendigo Residential Strategy steps away from “business as usual” model of land use and development – Commits to applying the UGB to prevent ongoing urban sprawl. – City centre residential development and urban infill – New housing options – 55% of households one and two persons ITLUS to set out the realities of ‘induced demand - generated traffic’ – Commit to redirecting investment away from cyclical/continuous road capacity improvements to into maximising the efficient use of the existing infrastructure and implementing the findings of the ALC. “business as usual” model over last 50 years has been built on and has always assumed a level of funding that we never have had and will never have

Historic and projected growth of volumes

Making the most of what we have “The strategy for the future is based on utilising the existing road network” Bendigo 2020 Transportation Study (1993) The strategic approach to network improvements outlined by the 1993 strategy is still sound; The 2015 difference is Seeing the capacity of the whole transport network – bus, rail, walking, cycling, car pool, Seeing the benefits of shifts in mode – health / community Integrating transport and land use planning – new development and retrofitting

Watch this space for the progressive release of all this information