Active Transportation in Cape Breton Regional Municipality

HEALTH PROMOTION--Active Transportation in Cape Breton Regional Municipality

The Pathways for People Active Transportation Tour is coming to Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) to encourage people to walk and wheel around town. The tour promotes the value of active transportation in improving people's health and physical activity, and the community's air quality and traffic congestion.

"Active transportation is something each of us can do -- it's cheap and accessible and a great way to become more physically active each day, to improve our health and our community," said Health Promotion Minister Rodney MacDonald. "This tour is empowering communities to encourage and assist people to do that."

Two-thirds of Nova Scotians are not active enough to achieve health benefits. Active transportation -- walking, biking or using other modes of non-motorized travel for trips within the community, can make a difference.

The tour will focus on youth and challenge communities to increase active ways to travel. During May and June the tour visited Yarmouth, Tusket, Shelburne, Lockeport, Bridgewater, Mahone Bay and Chester. Visits included public forums and meetings with schools, youth groups and community decision makers. Each community received a tool kit of best practice guides and reference materials. Similar tour stops are planned in other part of the province between September and November.

"Active transportation is a great tool for residents who want to make healthy lifestyle changes," said CBRM Active Transportation Committee member Yann Artur, of the Cape Breton Wellness Centre, one of many groups represented on the committee. "There is a lot of potential in CBRM to get people involved in this low-cost form of exercise. We hope it gets them thinking about regularly walking or biking to the corner store or to work instead of driving their cars."

Two public forums will be held in the region. The first will be held today, Sept. 15, at Miner's Museum, 17 Museum St., Glace Bay, at 7 p.m. The second forum will be held Tuesday, Sept. 16, at 7 p.m. at Cusack Elementary, 500 Birch Hill Dr., Sydney.

Remaining tour stops include Annapolis County, Wolfville, Windsor, Truro, Pictou County and Antigonish.

The Pathways for People Active Transportation Tour is part of Active Community Environments, a component of the Active Kids, Healthy Kids strategy. Active Community Environments will receive $208,000 in funding over three years from the Active Kids, Healthy Kids strategy, the Federal Diabetes Strategy and the Climate Change Action Fund. The Pathways for People Active Transportation Tour is a partnership between the Office of Health Promotion, the Ecology Action Centre and Youth for Environmental Action.

For more information and tour dates see the Web site at www.gov.ns.ca/src/pathways .