CCA Special on Getting to School!

A generation ago, most children walked or cycled to school. Now many children are driven, whether by motorbike, car, or other means. All those trips to and from school clog our cities, make the air filthy, and, ironically, make it unsafe for children to travel actively to school by foot or bicycle.

What is the solution? Our 2025 Spring Newsletter included the first section of this article. Here you can read the full story.

SCHOOL BUS: SOLUTION OR PROBLEM?

Cars are inefficient. Buses are vastly more efficient. So a seemingly sensible solution to the problem of transporting children to and from school is the school bus. Children can, in theory, ride safely with their peers while alleviating congestion.

But how sensible is the solution, really? After all, school buses make just two trips a day, and then only on the days that school is open. All other times they must be parked somewhere, which requires vast amounts of space. School buses are also expensive. The United States spends $21 billion a year on school buses. Meanwhile, many children attend school close enough to walk or cycle, were such options safe and convenient.

Rather than promote the idea of using school buses, how about campaigning to ensure that there are quality schools available throughout the city, and to have a policy incentivizing children to attend a neighborhood school? An accompanying step is to improve the physical environment so that the trip to school, in addition to being active and safe, is also enjoyable.

ADVANTAGES TO FUNDING PROGRAMS FOR AND ENCOURAGING ACTIVE TRAVEL TO SCHOOL

• Programs that improve infrastructure and encourage students to travel actively to school experience a significant increase in active trips.

• Programs also see a significant decline in injuries of children.

• Active and safe routes to school programs save local government and families money.

• Programs can reduce absences and tardiness.

• More children walking and cycling means less air and noise pollution, which in turn means fewer asthma attacks.

• Active travel means getting much needed physical activity, helps form lifetime good habits, and decreases the risk of chronic disease and obesity.

• Children arrive at school more ready to learn and do better academically when they travel actively to school.

Reference: https://www.saferoutespartnership.org/safe-routes-school/101/benefits

THE WALKING SCHOOL BUS AND BICIBUS

School buses, as discussed in a previous article in this newsletter, are a rather inefficient way to transport children to and from school. If not school buses, how then can we get children to and from school safely?

The key focus here is on active as well as safe travel; namely, Active and Safe Routes to School (ASRTS). When children travel actively, they arrive at school better prepared to learn; they do better in their classes; they are less likely to skip school; and they form good habits about active transport and physical activity early.

One great way to encourage and enable children to travel safely and actively to school is the Walking School Bus. Like its motorized namesake, the Walking School Bus picks up children along predetermined routes. But rather than costing a fortune, occupying a lot of space to move and park, and creating pollution as well as congestion, the Walking School Bus is clean, environmentally-friendly, and space-efficient. It simply involves a guardian who oversees children picking up more kids on the way to school, so that they can all walk together. Safe, active, social, and fun!

While the walking school bus is a great idea, it can cause problems when implemented incorrectly, as has been evidenced in the United States. Due to fear of traffic injury, the American walking school buses involve reflective vests and adult guardians. And because this is the U.S. it naturally includes liability insurance too. This can give children the impression that walking is a dangerous as opposed to a normal activity, thereby discouraging rather than encouraging lifelong active travel habits.

A fun twist on the Walking School Bus is the BiciBus (comes from Spanish, means “bicycle bus”). The BiciBus operates in the same way as the Walking School Bus, but rather than children and guardians walking to school together, they cycle together. They occupy little space, create no pollution, get to socialize on the way, and engage in physical activity.

Why not promote the Walking School Bus and BiciBus in your own city?

SCHOOL STREETS

The transformation from existing traffic-clogged streets to ones where children and adults can easily walk and cycle is not an easy or quick one. In order to make active travel convenient, safe, and pleasant, many infrastructural changes are needed. (To learn more in detail about what those changes entail, consider attending—and encouraging your local transport planners to join you—the South African Roads Federation course, about which you can learn more at this webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6i6WzkOslc)

Fortunately, others have already taken the initiative, so we can learn from their great work.

Paris is creating 300 School Streets, which are accessible, cooler, greener, incorporate stormwater management, have street furniture, connect to bicycle networks, offer games for children, and are a great place for events. You can watch a film about it here [https://www.openplans.org/blog/paris-streetfilms] or read more about it here: [https://momentummag.com/paris-expands-childrens-streets-schools/] Barcelona, in addition to the BiciBus, is also creating School Streets.

But perhaps the most exciting example for our readers is a recent development in Delhi. Because sure, Europeans can make at least parts of their cities marvelous for walking and cycling (although suburbia in Europe too often resembles the car-dominated ones of the United States)—but the enormous city of Delhi?

And yet HumanQind has been working with the Government of India—and more importantly, with local schoolchildren—to create “250 metres of happiness”. The government’s interest is due largely to the horrific fact that on average, 45 children die every day on the roads in India.

HumanQind seeks not only to make cities vastly better for children, but to allow children to take the lead in explaining and creating what they need. Children are thus working together with others to design safe (and happiness-promoting) school zones in Delhi. You can learn more about it here: [https://www.humanqind.org/crosswalk-initiative]

Among the other significant transformations were getting the cars off the footpaths and widening them; incorporating an outdoor gym between schools; and adding signage, markings, learning and play opportunities, and vendor stalls. Children can now walk and cycle much more safely to school; their voices are being heard; our cities are getting better.

The concept of not simply listening to children, but of creating opportunities for them to take the lead in design, has spread across many countries. UN Habitat has funded projects in various countries that use the computer game Minecraft to enable children and others to create designs for public space. In Nepal, children engage with those of all ages in sensory walks, seeing what they like and dislike about their current environments and working with others to map out and begin to create better alternatives, such as the weekly carfree street event in Hadigaun, Kathmandu. In Dhaka, Work for a Better Bangladesh worked with Cardiff and BRAC University to enable children to map out their likes and dislikes in their neighborhood and create designs of improved streets—no cars, more trees, and more and better play opportunities.

It's past time to go beyond simply uttering phrases like “children are our future” and give them more of a role in redesigning our present, too-often disastrous cities!

For more information on the topic of school travel and children’s contribution to urban design, please watch the CCA webinar on the topic: https://www.facebook.com/carfreealliance/videos/658730589998534