It’s 11PM and you’re leaving the Health Sciences Centre after a long day at your school placement. In classic St. John’s fashion, it is lightly raining and misty.
While you initially hesitate – should I really do this in the rain? Wouldn’t it be better to call someone? – you then make one of the best decisions you will have made today: You zip up your rain jacket, put in your headphones, and start walking home.
Active transportation (AT), defined as human-powered travel like walking, rolling, or strolling, is something I know well. I first heard about AT as a grad student, when I was hungry for a project I could finish before starting medical school.
I quickly memorized my elevator pitch: AT benefits physical, mental, social, economic, and environmental health.
These concrete advantages explain why I’ll recommend AT to future patients and discuss it at conferences; yet they don’t capture what I love about walking.
These feelings can’t (and shouldn’t) be reduced to percentages, which is why I want to share the sheer joy walking can bring and the way it shapes our social and community experiences in the loveliest ways I’ve known.
Running into neighbours is such a joy. Maybe you have little in common, or don’t even know them well enough to know if you do, but nothing makes you feel more at home than recognizing someone and sharing even a brief exchange of words.
Trading a few extra minutes for the joy of these intersecting lives is an exchange I happily make. Travelling on foot with its 360-degree sensory experience strengthens community ties; we’re not just focused on the road ahead, but immersed in the sights, smells, and sounds of our neighbourhoods.
You might notice a cat in a window, the pigeons it’s watching, and an older gentleman feeding them who waves as you pass, alongside another pedestrian witnessing the same scene.
These micro-interactions provide small doses of social connection absent in other modes of travel, and they even help us see people more positively. Our slower pace allows us to take it all in; humans were built for walking, and our sensory systems are too.
Walking shifts our perspective, leading to more favourable perceptions of our neighbourhoods and a deeper sense of attachment.
As someone new to St. John’s, it’s a delight to finally feel connected and recognize familiar routes after years of feeling out of place. Best of all, walking is a great equalizer: You don’t need a driver’s license or a car to fully engage in community life.
More pedestrians also mean more “eyes on the street,” a term coined by walking advocate Jane Jacobs.
Pedestrians create natural surveillance, deterring crime and building trust far more effectively than policing, signs, or threats.
The “neighbourhood watch – all suspicious activity reported” always makes me laugh; who is watching? Most stay indoors, curtains drawn, while I walk home – a privilege, to feel safe enough to do so and contribute to neighbourhood safety.
But the presence of others walking is about more than security. It brings rhythm and life to the streets, a subtle pulse of communal life that strengthens social bonds.
Walkable areas nurture social capital, with higher trust, reciprocity, and civic engagement.
People care more about their communities, whether through small gestures, volunteering, or simply acknowledging one another.
The joy of coincidence
While community ties are important, they are well-documented. In contrast, the joy of coincidence: those fleeting, unmeasurable moments that can’t be captured by numbers or statistical tests.
Even as a numbers-focused researcher, it’s precisely this elusiveness that draws me in.
Walking home late at night from a hospital shift, listening to Hozier under streetlights illuminating the drizzle, feels magical and unmanufactured.
I never know what time I’ll leave the hospital, what the weather will be like (I stopped checking forecasts when I moved to St. John’s 2.5 years ago), or what I’ll encounter along the way.
Coincidence is joyful because it’s unplanned; it gives permission to wander rather than chase efficiency.
On my walks, I’ve seen freshly bloomed flowers, puppies discovering their blocks, sunsets, kids on bikes, old friends reconnecting, and the way pigeons hop on their little legs.
I’ve run into people I know and, when I’ve been especially lucky, walked for some time alongside them.
By moving “less efficiently,” we create the space to notice these small wonders. These discoveries spark creativity or reflection; ideas for research, new diagnostic tests for patients, or simply gratitude for a heart that keeps beating long enough to carry me where I need to go.
Walking is undeniably good for physical and mental health (with medical professionals going so far as to “prescribe” it), as well as for the environment and the economy.
Beyond these measurable benefits lies something less tangible, less scientific, and more memorable: The joy of walking.
Imagine the city we could create if more people walked, engaging with one another, appreciating their neighbourhoods, seeing people more favourably, and slowing down to observe the sights and sounds. In many ways, our city would become unrecognizable.
The next time you have to get somewhere, consider taking the scenic route. Every journey on foot is an act of quiet resistance; vote with your body and see what the world has to offer.
