National walking advocate Mark Fenton stood before an audience of about 120 people last week at the O’Shaughnessy Center. He asked the room, made up of city leaders from around Flathead Valley, to think back to their childhood and recall their earliest recollection of physical activity.

Most in the room agreed their memory involved riding a bike or walking to school without the supervision of an adult.

Then Fenton asked how many would refer to themselves as “free range kids” — almost every hand went up in agreement. But most also felt that children today don’t meet that description.

“Forty-years ago we had a lot of free range kids,” he said. “We don’t any more and we all agree it’s not good. So I ask one question — what precisely are you doing about it?”

Fenton is a national public health, planning and transportation consultant. He is an adjunct associate professor at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. Last week in Whitefish he led a healthy communities workshop for city and county representatives based on the concept of creating walking- and biking-friendly cities that encourage healthy people.

Fenton challenged city leaders to think about whether they are providing the sidewalks, trails, bike lanes and safe crosswalks that encourage more kids and adults to walk or ride rather than drive to their destination.

“This is the single greatest public health issue we face,” he said. “We can build a healthier community by design.”

Fenton pushed aside the idea that it’s no longer safe to allow children to walk to school or play in the park by themselves. National data show there has been no increase in violent crimes against kids by people who don’t know them in the last 40 years, he noted. The number of kids walking to school went from 40 percent to 15 percent and childhood obesity rates tripled during that same time period, he noted.

“We have taken physical activity out of our daily lives,” he said.

He points to the Surgeon General’s recommendation that adults get 30 minutes of physical activity per day, while children need 60 minutes. Fenton’s solution is to create safe walking and biking environments that encourage physical activity through regular activities such as walking to the grocery store or riding a bike to work.

“We have to talk about how we make physical activity a fundamental part of the day,” he said. “Every time we walk out the door there should be a viable walking network, or if I have to go farther there is a biking network, or even farther there is a viable transit network.”

There are four key elements for people being more physically activity — variety of activities available, paths or sidewalks well-connected with facilities, design encourages it with bike racks and benches, and routes are safe and accessible for everyone.

“Places like downtown Kalispell and downtown Whitefish in their historic districts meet this criteria,” he said. “If you were downtown you were within walking distance of an elementary school, a grocery store, a hardware store, businesses and the town hall.”

Planning for future street and sidewalk design, along with new development design, is a must to meeting the four key elements.

Fenton said new stores should be encouraged to build pedestrain-friendly approaches with smaller parking lots behind the building. He gave examples of national chains that built in downtown areas fitting in with historic character that encourages walking access.

New housing developments should be required to construct sidewalks and walking paths that connect to already established routes, he said.

“Many people will call trees, benches, lighting, bike parking and bus shelters an amenity,” he said. “My 70-year-old mom will walk downtown, but if you don’t give her a bench to rest on she won’t walk. These are not amenities — they are necessary.”

Fenton spoke about making sure routes near schools are safe. He noted several examples were parents were unwilling to let their students walk a short distance to school because of a lack of sidewalks and safe crosswalks.

Following his talk, Fenton took participants out on the streets of Whitefish to identify intersections and crossing that need to be improved. He asked people to think like a child riding a bike, looking for a safe place to cross a busy street, or an elderly person trying to cross the road at a slower pace.