Surprising Benefit of Fines for High-Polluting Vehicles: More Kids Walking to School in London

nnLondon has the largest ultra-low emissions zone in the world, and it’s causing children to walk or bike to school much more than their peers in other cities, a new study has shown.nnIn London, a charge of $16.00 is required to enter and exit the city in a car that isn’t low emissions or electric, but it wasn’t always so. 6 years ago, only certain parts of inner London were considered low emissions zones.nnResearchers at Queen Mary’s and Cambridge universities saw that the zone was going to be extended to encompass the whole of metropolitan London, and wanted to take the opportunity to study how this change would affect the health of children.nnThe study was launched in 2018 and measured inner London and Luton, a smaller city to the north. Children between the ages of 6 and 9 were given questionnaires about their habits, and were also occasionally examined for their pulmonary health, with researchers expecting that the drop in emissions would lead to better lung development.nnSeveral papers will be published on the collected dataset, and the first one has shown that because of the reduced traffic congestion in the London ultra-low emissions zone, children are more likely to walk, bike, or ride a scooter to school.nn2 out of every 5 London students in the study had switched from “passive” to “active” forms of getting to school—in other words, 2 out of every 5 London students used to be driven to school, but are now walking, biking, or riding a scooter.nnThis was more than in Luton, where only 1 in 5 had switched to biking or walking during the study period.nnSIMILAR FROM BARCELONA: It Started With 5 Families, Now Hundreds are Biking to School Together With The ‘Bike-bus’nn“Physical activity in general is vital for preventing obesity,” said Christina Xiao, an epidemiologist affiliated with Cambridge University and lead author of the paper. “There’s strong evidence that shows that it prevents weight gain, and also has benefits in terms of children’s physical development and mental health as well.”nnGET UP AND GO NEWS: Just Go Walk: Studies Show Normal Walking Can Add Years to Your Life and Reduce Disease SymptomsnnThe study was limited in that it didn’t examine why the switch had been made. Was it because there was less traffic and so parents felt more comfortable navigating streets with their kids, or because it actually cost money for parents to drive their kids to school?nnThe authors of the first study hope that such details, along with the effect of less air pollution, will be parsed out in future studies.nnFOR THE CHILDREN: Dogs Placed in Elementary Schools Making a Big Difference in Academics and Mental Health for Michigan StudentsnnThere are 300 or so low emissions zones across Europe where, in general, walking and biking are more common ways to get around, but no such legislative emissions zone exists in the US.nnWALK Over To Your Friends Social Media And SHARE This Story…