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Urban planning and transport policy
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- Improve walking conditions, using measures such as increased width of pavement, lack of barriers, presence of trees to protect against heat and sunlight, good lightning, protection from motorized traffic, and improved pedestrian crossings.
- Improve cycling conditions by increasing the level of protection and separation of cycle tracks from car traffic, providing good lightning and continuity of cycle track network.
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- Community planners and designers, community stakeholders, transportation professionals, and government agencies can encourage walking-friendly environments by doing the following:
- Designing streets, sidewalks, and crosswalks that encourage walking for people of all ages and abilities.
- Improving traffic safety on streets and sidewalks.
- Promoting the availability of safe, convenient, and well-designed community locations and programs that promote walking.
- Keeping existing sidewalks and other places to walk free from hazards'.
- 'Reducing speed limits and enforce traffic laws in areas where walking is common'.
- 'Supporting safe, efficient, and easy-to-use public transit systems and transit-oriented development'
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- 'Governments should ensure that the development of new cities and modification of existing ones support the population to be physically active through measures which should include the provision of safe and reliable public transport systems, safe walkways for pedestrians and recreational spaces such as parks'.
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- Initiate programs to create or enhance access to places to be physically active. This can include building walking trails and providing public access to school gymnasiums, playgrounds, or community centers
- 'Buildings and campuses should provide active options such as access to stairs, and pleasant and efficient ways to walk within and between buildings
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- Collaborate with neighbourhood residents and local stakeholders to implement improvements and traffic calming strategies that will facilitate walking and cycling such as narrowing roads from two to one lane, painting new lines on the road to guide and slow traffic.
- Equip buses with bicycle racks and establish roadway standards that require bicycle lanes.
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- Improve built environment factors that favour active transport such as street lighting, pedestrian crossings and pavements, availability of public transport, street connectivity, creation of car free zones, reduction in motor vehicle speed, traffic calming in residential areas.
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School policies
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- Member States should provide high quality physical education in educational settings (from infant years to tertiary level), including opportunities for PA before, during and after the formal school day, including school sports.
- All Member States should be encouraged to increase physical education taught time to at least 5 lessons per week during compulsory education period ( ̴ 5 hours)
- The physical education curriculum content should include physical activities according to maturity phases taking into account the favourable periods that allow the full development of neuromotor abilities and skills
- Children with disability or special educational needs should be offered differentiated and adapted methodologies and activities and not be excluded from physical education.
- 'Qualified and specialised PE teachers should be preferred at all educational levels. When not possible, as a minimum, qualified physical education teachers or certified coaches should counsel and support general teachers'.
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- Schools can promote walking and physical activity by:
- Promoting programs that support safe walking and bicycling to school to help children be physically active.
- Reducing car traffic and speed car near schools
- Developing safe routes for cycling or walking groups, or active skating and providing bicycle racks.
- Encouraging walking opportunities for students and staff as part of regular classroom activities
- Making gyms, fields, and tracks available before, during, and after school for students and staff and encourage their use through activities such as walking and fitness clubs and other school-related events.
- Establishing formal policies or agreements, such as shared use agreements, to make school facilities available to community residents or to allow schools to use nearby community facilities, such as fields and parks.
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- Increase hours of physical education in the curriculum.
- Offer extracurricular sports activities.
- Ensure sports facilities and equipment at schools and training of teachers.
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Workplace policies
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- Daily work routines may involve physical activity: for example, by holding walk-and-talk meetings, providing bicycles for employees or by launching a take-the-stairs campaign with visible signs.
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- Promotion of 'worksite activity programs that provide access to onsite or offsite fitness rooms, walking breaks or other opportunities to engage in physical activity'.
- Employers can encourage workers to be physically active, facilitate active transportation by supplying showers and secure bicycle storage'
- 'Businesses can consider access to opportunities for active transportation and public transit when selecting new locations'
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Employers can promote walking by doing the following:
- 'Provide access to facilities, locations, and programs to support walking'.
- 'Use policies and incentives to encourage walking, such as flextime, paid activity breaks, or discounts for off-site exercise facilities'.
- 'Establish walking clubs or competitions that encourage and motivate employees to meet individual or team goals'.
- 'Consider walkability and access to public transit when selecting new worksite locations'.
- 'Engage in community planning efforts to make the communities around worksites more walkable'.
- 'Provide employees with tailored messages about walking in and around the worksite'.
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Social support
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- 'Provide culturally and physically safe spaces for free physical activity that are acceptable to young low-income women, including childcare facilities'.
- 'New measures are required to address the gender gap in physical activity. This includes: improving physical activity participation of girls at school; improving the physical and cultural safety of spaces for physical activity; and working with disadvantaged girls and women to remove barriers to their physical activity'.
- Support and encourage for "physical activity for all" initiatives, especially for people with disabilities or from minority ethnic groups, including community schemes to improve access to appropriate local options for PA.
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- Enhance PA-increasing networks such as organizing a buddy system (two or more people who set regular times to do physical activity together), walking groups, and community dances.
- Senior centres can provide exercise programs for older adults.
- 'Health and fitness facilities and community programs can provide access to exercise programs and equipment for a broad range of people, including older adults and people with disabilities'
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- Link organisations, programs, and support state and local partnerships to promote walking, walkability, and ensure equal walking opportunities for people with disabilities.
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