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A human-powered mobility network supports exercise and recreation, and has multiple environmental benefits. The most obvious one is that human-powered transportation (walking, cycling, skating, skateboarding, riding a scooter, etc.) avoids the pollutants cars release. According to an article in Sciencing:

Car pollutants cause immediate and long-term effects on the environment. Car exhausts emit a wide range of gases and solid matter, causing global warming, acid rain, and harming the environment and human health. Engine noise and fuel spills also cause pollution. Cars, trucks and other forms of transportation are the single largest contributor to air pollution in the United States.16

In an article for World Watch magazine, Gary Gardner wrote about the CO₂ savings that can come from cycling instead of driving, writing: “A bicycle commuter who rides four miles to work, five days a week, avoids 2,000 miles of driving and (in the United States) about 2,000 pounds of CO₂ emissions, each year. This amounts to nearly a 5-percent reduction in the average American’s carbon footprint.”17