Ride to work... walk to work

Apparently Wednesday was Ride to Work Day and today is Walk to Work Day, a fact that seems to have gone unnoticed by the University of the Sunshine Coast where I work. This is surprising considering they have a research centre for Healthy Activities and Sports Exercise (CHASE), which runs a Healthy Lifestyle Program for students and staff, providing a small number of activities and facilities, such as a walking group, yoga, pilates, weights, karate.

I wondered whether this oversight was to do with the layout, and therefore attitude of the Sunshine Coast, which is very much a car society. The Sunshine Coast is like a city that is growing from the outside in. There is no one CBD as such, and many of the residential areas are semi-rural or just miles away from the urban business districts. The large employers are the councils and the university. The university itself is "out in the sticks" although a small commercial district is beginning to grow not too far away. Public transport is better than nothing - I catch the bus to work most days but I live in a fairly developed and central area. Some colleagues of mine have to leave the office by 5pm in order to catch the last bus home, which isn't much of an incentive to use public transport, and cycling and walking are almost out of the question to all but the exceptionally fit (and crazy) due to the distances involved.

Map of the Sunshine Coast and its many urban centres from www.qldtravel.com.au

With this in mind I emailed CHASE to find out why they weren't doing more to promote these campaigns, and to suggest that next year they follow the lead of Noosa Council, whose Travel Smart initiative provided a free breakfast for those employees taking part. Apparently CHASE weren't even aware of these campaigns.

I have to admit that I didn't ride or walk on either of these days but I cycle every Tuesday anyway and this morning I got off the bus a stop early. However, Toby cycled 45km (28 miles) from our house in Buddina to his office in Tewantin yesterday, proving that it can be done if you really want to. He also car-pools quite regularly, which just shows that we can change our habits to travel more efficiently if we put our minds to it. It just requires a bit of thought, preparation and cooperation.

Speaking of commerative days, my colleague Linda declared today to be Chiton Day. Chitons are intertidal zone molluscs. This is the kind of stuff you inadvertantly learn when you work at a university.

A chiton in its natural intertidal habitat from www.wikipedia.com