The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) and Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) has published two research briefs on non-motorized transportation issues.  One is titled “Sidewalks Promote Walking” and the other is “How Bike Paths and Lanes Make a Difference.”  Although the former concludes that the presence of sidewalks has a slight positive effect on the tendency of adults to take walks, it points out that ifthe people in communities without sidewalks (about one-third of the nation’s population) were to walk at the same rate as they do in communities with sidewalks, an additional 2.8 million adults would join the ranks of the walking.

The latter brief finds that bicyclists riding in areas without bike paths or lanes are nearly twice as likely to feel endangered (mostly by motorists) as bicyclists with paths or lanes, and are more than four times as likely to be dissatisfied with how their community is designed for making biking safe.