Highlights of the last year
26 Oct 2022
We've taken a moment to stop and look back at our last year. It's been all action!
Victoria Walks' new Impact Report sets out our highlights for the 2021/22 year, including:
- With assistance in promotion from stakeholders including RACV and a range of councils, a total of 2,372 Victorians aged 18+ completed our Victorian Walking Survey. Three-quarters of respondents said the government should make it safer and easier to walk to local shops.
- We held the Smart Urban Futures conference as a hybrid in-person and online event for the first time, along with our partners at the Municipal Association of Victoria. The keynote speakers included Matthew Baldwin, Deputy Director-General of the European Commission.
- We released our report Getting to the Bus Stop, including a survey of 436 Victorian bus users and audits of 70 bus stops. This attracted good media coverage and we were asked to present findings to a number of government audiences.
- Our work was cited in a range of research and publications by other organisations, including the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads, NZ Transport Agency, the South Australian Walking Strategy and the World Health Organisation report Walking and cycling: latest evidence to support policy-making and practice.
- We attracted wide media coverage, ranging from walking inspiration stories, to road safety issues and the impact of the Victorian Government’s e-scooter trial on walkers. We led a call for the Victorian Government to extend TAC coverage to walkers hit by people riding bikes and e-scooters (image above).
- As part of our project with VicHealth, we built on our work supporting bushfire affected communities by mapping a collection of 22 walks in East Gippsland Shire, 11 in Towong Shire, and brought the total in Alpine Shire to 15.
- With the Support of VicHealth, we hosted Changing Streets: successfully engaging communities, a free online workshop for Victorian councils with speakers covering the City of Sydney’s Summer Streets program, City of Moreland’s Open Streets trial and City of Yarra’s Thanks for 30.
- We held two events for our supporters, the first featuring the Hon. Ben Carroll, Minister for Public Transport, Roads and Road Safety and the second with José Besselink, Urban Planner at City of Rotterdam.
Victoria Walks' social media impact also continues to grow:
- Our Facebook following grew to nearly 115,000 and our posts were seen a total of 10 million times.
- Our Dog Walks group now has nearly 13,000 members sharing great dog-friendly walks.
- There were 805,639 visits to our Walking Maps.
We look forward to making another big splash in 2022/23!