The Miracle Pill

Sport won’t change things – Van Tulleken describes this prevailing narrative about physical activity as ‘the cult of individual responsibility’. This illusion is sustained in no small part by the parallel commodification of exercise, represented as something theoretically available to all but, in practice, often impossible for those poor in money or time, or otherwise challenged. It is illuminating to consider how the decades-long drift away from everyday movement has been so closely tracked by the gradual evolution of sport and gym-going into a value-laden semi-religion, with bodily health viewed not as a routine occurrence but a personal project, one closely attached to appearance, status and wealth.

Unlike other areas of modern life which have helped push out everyday movement, the urban status quo is deeply problematic for a number of reasons. While no one is really suggesting that people do away with labour-saving appliances in the home, when it comes to the takeover of virtually all human-powered travel by the motor vehicle, it is a different story. This is not to say that cars should not exist, simply that they are not necessarily needed for the countless millions of tiny journeys they undertake every day. Such mass car use causes enormous damage in a series of areas entirely separate from activity, everything from choking air pollution to dangerous, socially disconnected cities, plus of course a significant role in the global, existential threat of the climate emergency.

[...] the necessity is to greatly slow down motor traffic to no more than 20mph, ideally less, through a combination of clever street design, robust enforcement and, over years, a change in the traffic culture. Some Dutch residential streets make the point abundantly clear by putting up signs saying, ‘Cars are guests’.

Along with this – and it is here that some British politicians tend to have a mild fit of the vapours – must come changes to make driving less convenient for small, urban trips. A common approach is known as modal filtering, where certain streets are made access-only for cars, using separated bollards through which cyclists and pedestrians can easily pass. Thus, a journey to a local shop might take ten minutes on a bike but significantly longer in a car, nudging people into being active. The reduction in vehicle traffic also makes the streets more appealing for walking and play.

As with Jan Gehl’s approach, such very practical engineering measures must be combined with a more generally different way of looking at things. The official Dutch government road design manual, something of a 388-page secular bible for those who push for active travel,²³ is based around a holistic concept called duurzaam veilig, or sustainable safety. One of its principles is the idea that humans are flawed, and make mistakes, and that the infrastructure surrounding them should be suitably forgiving. When you are trying to tempt out unprotected humans amid a world of speeding, two-tonne metal boxes, this arguably is as important an idea as any.