For a healthier life, it’s time to get back on your bike or, if you already ride, to bring others along.- The health, economic, and environmental benefits of biking are unsurpassed and, in the case of environment, may be essential to our survival.
Here’s to Your Health!
America has a health crisis with many preventable diseases attributed to our sedentary lifestyles. According to the Center for Disease Control, Americans spend a staggering $117 billion in annual health care costs related to low physical activity. Simply put, people of all ages, races and ethnicities, shapes, sizes, and abilities can benefit greatly from more physical activity.
There’s no need to belabor the point that riding is part of a healthier lifestyle. Even moderate biking can improve cardiorespiratory fitness, increase heart health and lower blood pressure, and help maintain or lose weight. Pedal assist e-bikes make easy for new and returning riders to get on a bike, even if they don’t think they are fit enough.
Cycling is a low impact form of exercise, making it a safe choice for older adults and people with weak or damaged joints. Riding improves balance and core stability, which help prevent injuries.
Biking also provides the demonstrated psychological benefits of being outdoors, where increased fresh air and sunlight exposure improve riders’ mood and sense of well-being and, later, helps them sleep better at night.
Biking even helps the health of others—especially those with respiratory problems—by improving local air quality by reducing the congestion and carbon emissions caused by commuting and short car trips.
Climate Change is Here!
Bicycling fights climate change more effectively than perhaps any other method available. This is a fight we need to make NOW!
As of this month, the United States in 2022 has experienced 15 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, or more than double the historical average of 7 events per year. Between 2017 and 2021, 89 events in our country caused an estimated 4,557 deaths and over $788 billion dollars in damage.
Fairfax County is not immune to climate change effects. It has been experiencing stronger storms related to climatic shifts in recent years. A single severe storm in 2019 cost county taxpayers $14 million.
County and federal tax dollars spent on recovery from weather events are funds that are not available for other needed public services, programs, and projects. Meanwhile, drought, flooding, and wild fires contribute to food production shortfalls that increase everyone’s cost of living.
Extreme weather events threaten life and property and often impose significant personal costs on individuals. Available figures fail to capture these personal costs nor the total costs of widespread power outages, displacement of residents, habitat loss, and victims’ physical and mental health.
Without rapid cuts in heat-trapping emissions, the toll of climate disasters is almost certain to keep rising.
One of the best places to start the fight against climate change is our transportation system, which, because of the dominance of personal motor vehicles, generates massive amounts of the carbon dioxide that is a major contributor to climate change.
Active travel—biking, walking, and rolling—has the potential to replace as much as 75 percent of short motor vehicle trips in urban/suburban areas. Bicycling and electric bike riding, in particular, can quickly bring about changes in travel that lower emissions.
To get more people on bikes, however, FABB needs your support to advocate for more and better bicycling infrastructure and to conduct events to teach and encourage new riders.
Your gift to our Annual Appeal will enable us to press harder for urgent local action to speed the development of protected and well-maintained bike lanes, equitable traffic laws, and secure bike parking at businesses and bus and rail stops to make biking a safe and reliable substitute for travel by car.
Please donate today and join us in working for a healthier and more environmentally friendly Fairfax County.
