How can we add walking to our already busy lives? Walk for trips within two miles of home. Use transit for longer trips and commutes. Short walks to the bus or MAX, then to the worksite and back again at the end of the day, will add up.Learn more about walking and see a two-minute safety video at the Drive Less/Save More website.

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Get moving with Metro’s Walk There! guide

Learn more about walking and your health

Need another reason to start walking? A study published in January 2011 shows walking recharges the brain. Researchers randomly assigned 120 healthy but sedentary men and women (average age mid-60s) to one of two exercise groups. One group walked around a track three times a week, building up to 40 minutes at a stretch; the other group did a variety of less aerobic exercises, including yoga and resistance training with bands.

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After a year, brain scans show that among the walkers, the hippocampus – the part of the brain involved in memory – increased in volume by about two percent on average; in the non-walking group, it declined by about 1.4 percent. Since such a decline is normal in older adults, “a two percent increase is fairly significant,” said the lead author, Kirk Erickson, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh. Both groups improved on a test of spatial memory, but the walkers improved more.