It's ironic in a way – people leave the smog and congestion of big cities for a healthier, cleaner environment in the suburbs, but sprawling developments not only eat into precious green space, they actually create a number of health risks including poorer air quality from increased car use.

	Organize a Walk/Bike to School Week Join millions of students around the world who walk to school as part of International Walk to School Week in October. Keep a travel diary to record how many trips you take in a week or month and the different forms of transportation you took. Compare your results with your classmates and explain why you think it is important for everyone to reduce the amount of fuel we use for transportation.

Because residential sprawl communities are usually far away from commercial areas like grocery stores, restaurants and work places, people need to drive even more.

Lack of good transportation routes from suburbs to downtowns leads to big traffic jams. To ease the traffic problem, existing highways are expanded and new ones are created, but new and widened roads only attract more drivers to the roads. This results in even more people travelling further and more frequently until the roads are congested once again.

Instead of more roads, people should car pool (travel in one car with other people going to the same location, rather than wasting gas and money, and creating more traffic and pollution by travelling in individual cars).

And there should be more dedicated bus lanes during rush hour and transitways, networks of roads for buses only that run from the suburbs to downtown at high speeds with only a few stops.

	Cars are one of Canada's biggest sources of air pollution. They use a lot of gasoline and oil, which are non-renewable fossil fuels. When burned, fossil fuels release energy as well as harmful gases that contribute to smog, climate change and acid rain.

If more people used public transportation, governments would likely spend more money providing faster and more comfortable service. Better service would in turn attract even more riders, reducing even more congestion and air pollution.

What can you do? Before you ask for a car ride, think! Can you bike, walk, skateboard or roller blade instead? If so, do it, if not, take public transportation-it's much more energy efficient than the car. Think about it: a single bus can carry up to 50 people. If these 50 people each drove a car, there would be a big increase in fuel use, pollution and traffic.