The Age recently reported that at Albert Park Primary School
Almost every one of the school's 370 students uses an environmentally friendly mode of transport to get to class.
The school's bike racks are at bursting point, while scooters, skateboards and roller-blades are also favoured by students.
Isn't that bloody marvellous?
It's part of the School Travel Planning initiative by the Victorian Government—in fact Albert Park PS even features on the TravelSmart web site as a case study:
'Travel Buddies' was an initiative of Albert Park's with the objective of connecting children who were neighbours or on the same routes to school. A less formal approach than the Walking School Bus program, it aimed to increase the number of children and parents walking together.
A great idea, with some unexpected extra side-effects:
Whilst schools such as Albert Park have seen a growing change in student and parent attitudes toward modes of travel other than the car, other spin-offs became evident. The focus on community connections (such as travel buddies, school neighbours and stories in the school newsletter), helped to develop friendships within the school community and, in the words of the school 'it is through this lens that positive changes can be made to children's health and environmental health'.
Check-off the benefits:
-
healthier kids
-
reduced exhaust emissions
-
reduced traffic congestion
-
a stronger local community
And now ponder: why isn't there more of this?
What's even sadder is that we need a governent-sponsored programme to return things to how they were and how they could so easily be.
While I take your point about it being sad that this is "news" and not the "norm" I can't help but feel that this is a fantastic, positive story. I'd love to see a case study of a single school's "active transport" success published in the press once a week until it becomes so boring that people no longer regard it as newsworthy.
Frankly, I think it's a miracle that this made the paper at all—but I'm very pleased that it did. Papers being what they are, I think active transport case studies would be deemed "boring" by the sub-editors (if not the readership) after the second week.
But then again the series in The Age on bike commuter routes in Melbourne has made it into a third week (and maybe a fourth installment tomorrow) so there's hope yet…
The kids need to be better educated about the dangers of running in front of oncomming traffic. Today the school nearly lost three students because they ran accross the road against a red light.
It's a fair point from john, but I think this isn't a problem that's specific to Albert Park Primary School or just to schools that have a walk-to-school programme. It's just as much a problem where kids jump out of parked cars and cross busy streets away from formal school crossings.
Comments
I saw this too, and thought it was brilliant.
The sad thing is that this WAS the norm about 20 years ago.