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News Features
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By CANDICE REED Monday, 06 November 2006
TRAFFIC outside schools remains congested 18 months after an initiative launch to reduce the number of cars travelling to and from schools.
Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) figures show there are 10 walking bus routes in Howick and Pakuranga involving a total of 173 children. This has removed 57 cars from the roads resulting in more than 40,000 fewer car trips to and from schools per year. (Figures are based on each car making four trips each day). These buck national trends, which claim the programme is already achieving more than 20 per cent of the 10-year Regional Land Transport Strategy (RLTS) target of 12,600 fewer car trips. Figures from RLTS show over 3000 children walk to school through 180 Walking School Buses operating across 87 schools and by June 100 schools had developed or were developing School Travel Plans. Only two of the 131 Auckland wide schools are from the local community, Willowbank Primary and Baverstock Oaks. ARTA school travel coordinator Debbie Lang says while the schools are still in early stages of establishing a plan, progress is going well to reduce the number of car trips to and from school gates. Both have conducted surveys of parents and students, asking them a range of questions on preferred transport options. “We ask them how they get to school, why they drive (if they do) and what the parent’s barriers are to walking, for example safety concerns,” Ms Lang adds. The next stage is to establish a working committee of parents to develop a plan to make walking routes safer and to offer other environmentally friends transport options. Some $1.5m was allocated over two years for the travel plans as part of the Auckland sustainable cities programme. Nearly a year and a half later, council has not identified the school travel plans as a priority for any other school in the area. One school in Manurewa will establish a plan next year. Manukau city traffic engineer Bruce Conaghan says council is looking at all options to reduce the traffic congestion, but says much of the responsibility falls with parents. “Parents have a huge role to play in the road safety surrounding schools,” he says. “Some need to realise there is no need to drop their child off right outside the gate. If they need to drop them off a bit down the road and the child has to walk 100 metres then so be it.“ Reduced speed zones and drop off limits could also be enforced, but this would be a city wide rollout says Mr Conaghan. School traffic congestion will always be a problem, he says, but work to break down the barriers parents have to alternative transport modes. “It was part and parcel in my generation that you walked to school, it was the norm, now parents have stepped away from that and drop their children off at the school gates,” he says. ARTA sustainable transport manager Anna Percy says travel planners work with schools to reduce the number of students dropped off by car, nearly double than 10 years ago. | |||||||||
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