Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the proportion of short trips made by walking among Michigan adults and barriers to walking for transportation.
Methods: Four questions on walking for transportation were asked of 3808 respondents to the Michigan Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) between January and December 2001.
Results: Three quarters (74.3%) of Michigan adults were estimated to have made at least one short trip (.25-1 mile) in the previous week; however, only 36.2% of them walked even one of these trips. The mean proportion of short trips walked was 21.4%; less than 10% of all respondents walked five or more trips per week.
Discussion: Our results provide a Michigan-specific baseline for Healthy People 2010 Objective 22-14 (i.e., increase the proportion of trips made by walking) and suggest the potential for these questions to be used to monitor active transportation via the BRFSS.