Wellington, New Zealand's healthiest city

Gui Lin, special correspondent of this newspaper in New Zealand

The University of Otago and the University of Auckland in New Zealand previously jointly released a report that named the capital City of Wellington as the "healthiest city" in the country. Wellingtonians walk, cycle and take public transport more often than the other five cities in New Zealand, and the city's air is cleaner.

Wellington is located at the southernmost tip of New Zealand's North Island and is New Zealand's transportation hub. Surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing the sea on the other, it is a modern consumer city with shops on a small flat land in the city center. There are no polluting industries, only small printing, publishing, hardware, automobile repair, food processing and so on. The city has undulating hills, strong sea breezes, frequent earthquakes, and most of the city is low-rise buildings, with curved and narrow roads. The houses are mainly wooden structures scattered among the greenery. 27.5% of Wellington residents prefer to walk out of the house, far more than Auckland (16%); The public transport travel rate was 6.2%, ranking first among all cities; Only 36 per cent of households own two or more cars, up from 55 per cent in Auckland. In New Zealand, Wellington has the lowest levels of airborne particulate matter and the lowest CO2 emissions per 100,000 light vehicles, thanks to the large number of Wellington residents who use public transport and travel on foot and by bicycle.

On January 13 of this year, New Zealand researchers published an article in the International Journal of Epidemiology titled "Is The Mortality Rate of Office Workers Related to The Mode of Transportation?" A 3-5-year follow-up of 3.5 million New Zealanders found that across all modes of travel, the mortality rate for commuters to work by bicycles was reduced by 13%. Wellington bikers are around 1.5 per cent, up from Auckland (0.4 per cent). Adopting a healthier way of travel has greatly helped the health of Wellington residents, who have lower prevalence of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes, healthier health and less carbon emissions.

Living in Wellington, people like to take the bus because the interior is clean and spacious, the windows are wide, and the scenery outside the window is unobstructed. In particular, the drivers and passengers are particularly friendly, and my parents once said with emotion: "Taking the bus in Wellington is a pleasure." "Once, the old couple took a bus to visit the National Museum of New Zealand, the two old people were not familiar with the place, the language was not clear, after getting on the bus, ask the driver to tell them when they arrived at the station. After arriving at the station, the driver actually stopped the car, led them to an intersection tens of meters away, and pointed out the route in detail before returning to the car, and waved goodbye to them through the window with the passengers.

With the rapid development of the city, in recent years, wellington's bus and train capacity is close to saturation, and urban traffic congestion has directly affected the walking and driving safety of citizens. To further increase the use of public transport and cycle lanes and reduce self-driving travel, new Zealand and Wellington authorities have launched a number of initiatives. According to National Radio New Zealand, the government has decided to implement a NZ$6.4 billion (NZ$1)4.50) plan to build a public transport, walking and cycling system in Wellington over the next 20 years, thereby greatly improving the health rate of the population.

In order to improve traffic between the city of Wellington and the airport, a project started in 2017, with an investment of NZ$4 million, built a 3-metre wide two-way cycle path and a 2-metre wide walkway in the coastal recreation area east of Wellington, with cycling and walking trails on one side, separated from the motorway by a 1 metre buffer belt. There are also green trees, flowers and benches along the way, facing the blue sea, which makes people linger. From May 2019, Wellington City Council, Transport New Zealand and the Government have partnered to invest NZ$37.25 million to build a complete network of cycling trails around Wellington in phases. As the programme progresses, Wellington's mode of transport will become greener, greener and healthier. ▲