Our program Children on the Move! Small Steps to Sustainability at
http://www.ecoplan.org/children/ch_index.htm has been entirely moribund
for various reasons, but please be assured that we intend to do
something useful with this. IN the meantime, I propose that you keep up
with our New Moblity Agenda at <http://newmobility.org/>
http://newmobility.org, which also has some elements that relate to our
intersts here.

In the meantime, we are eager to hear your ideas and suggestions for all
this.

Eric Britton

PS. The attached news item popped up on our New Mobility Agenda site
news section. FYI.

The Commons __ technology, economy, society__
Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara 75006 Paris, France
Tel. +331 4326 1323 Fax/Voicemail hotline: +331 5301 2896
http://www.ecoplan.org IP Videoconference: 81.65.50.149
Personal webpage: www.EricBritton.org
Email: Eric.Britton@... or ecoplan.adsl@...


Putting your best foot forward

The Government wants parents to stop driving children to school to ease
traffic congestion and improve health. Linda Blackburne reports on the
green alternatives to the school run
18 March 2004

Freezing sleet paints the rooftops white as the school "bus" winds its
way through the streets of Wickford. The driver, conductor and children
are wearing orange fluorescent jackets and hats, gloves and walking
shoes. The driver and conductor wait at "bus stops" for their
"passengers" and as each child climbs aboard, the conductor ticks off
their names in the register.

Halfway along the 20-minute route, the driver has to pull off the
pavement on to the road to negotiate a large pile of rubbish bags. She
makes a note in her logbook to complain to Basildon Council. Further on,
the bus has to cross a road and a real driver, seeing the bright orange
crocodile, stops to let it go by.

This is the "walking bus" for Hilltop county infant and junior school in
Wickford, Essex. It is one of 40 walking buses in the county, where
1,000 children are registered for the journeys, and is also the
strongest indication yet that something is being done to cut down on car
use.

Co-ordinated from its first trial run in May last year by the infants'
head teacher Celia Ebrahimi, and nurtured by a band of parents
determined to reduce car congestion and promote healthy exercise, the
Hilltop scheme is exactly the kind of endeavour that the Government is
backing in the School Transport Bill published this month.

Ministers are asking 20 local education authorities to begin pilot
schemes for innovative school travel plans in September 2006 as part of
its effort to get people out of their cars. By the end of March 2004 it
wants authorities and schools to have drawn up 3,000 travel plans: a
target that has already been exceeded, according to officials.

The Education and Transport departments are pouring £500m a year into
school transport in an effort to change school travel patterns, cut car
congestion and pollution and to reduce obesity among children and
adults.

During term time in urban areas, nearly one in five cars at 8.50am is on
the school run. Childhood obesity now affects 8.5 per cent of
six-year-olds and 15 per cent of 15-year-olds.

But the controversial bit is that the Bill gives councils the green
light to charge for normal school-bus journeys. Until now, bus journeys
of less than three miles have been free. The worry is that if charges
are introduced, people will stop using the bus and leap into their cars.

David Hart, the general secretary of the National Association of Head
Teachers, thinks this is a very real worry. It could result in the
Government achieving the opposite of what it wants, he believes.

The Catholic Education Council agrees and is lobbying hard on the issue.
In Colchester, Alan Whelan, the principal of St Benedict's Catholic
comprehensive school, calls Essex County Council's decision to charge
£100 a term for school-bus journeys "a Catholic education tax". It will
cut his Catholic intake from deprived areas in Clacton and Harwich by 20
per cent, he says. The school will survive, but only by taking
non-Catholics and undermining the mission of the school.

The transport charges put Catholic education in peril, according to
Father George Stokes, the director of education for the Brentwood
diocese. The gentleman's agreement established in 1944 between the
Catholic Church and the local education authorities was that transport
to denominational schools would be free, he says. Essex replies that
there are special concessions for large families and parents facing
financial hardship. The Government expects modest charging to pay for
transport in areas where there are poor services, but says that families
on low incomes will be protected. The argument continues.

But in addition to the charges, the Government is proposing that
starting times at neighbouring schools be staggered - as happens in the
United States - so that buses can drop children off at more than one
institution. This may take time to bring about. Enquiries to local
education authorities drew a blank; no schools seemed to be staggering
their hours.

Parents and teachers at Hilltop needed no government prompting for their
scheme. They introduced the walking bus after 20 years of severe car
congestion on an adjacent housing estate. Some parents were parking on
the estate as early as 8.15am or 2pm to make sure they got a place. "I
was determined to make this work," says Mrs Ebrahimi, who walked with
the bus on its first runs. "This is the sort of task most head teachers
would say they couldn't be bothered with, but it needed someone with a
bit of clout."

Hilltop operates three walking buses for a total of 60 children. There
is one adult to every four children for the infants, and one for every
eight children for the juniors. And children are given an incentive to
choose the healthy option; each time they walk with the bus they receive
a stamp, and when their book is full they receive a 50p token to spend
in the school bookshop. In addition, the children get a free gift of
encouragement every term, such as a pair of gloves, a pencil or a ruler.

The walking bus is popular with everyone - parents, drivers and
authorities - though some of the youngest children complain about all
the walking. Basildon Council quickly removed the offending rubbish
bags, and a rail company resurfaced a pedestrian crossing with non-slip
material for the children. "We all get to school safely together," says
one parent helper, Mandy Smart, whose two children walk with her. "We
are very visible and that makes people more aware. It teaches the
children road-safety skills. Many of the children in cars get out at
exactly the place they have to be, and they don't learn these skills."

But the scheme needs dedication to succeed. Parents have to apply for a
place and adult helpers have to be police-checked. Problems arise when
parent helpers leave or their children move on to other schools. In
Solihull, for example, a walking-bus scheme for St Alphege primary
school ended when the co-ordinators moved on.

Walking buses are not the only schemes the Government wants to
encourage. Nationally, there is a wide range of innovative projects
aimed at increasing children's exercise and cutting car use.

In York, traditionally a cycling city, Lakeside primary has in the past
five years increased the number of children walking to school from 62 to
68 per cent. Cycling has increased from 1.2 to 9 per cent, and bus use
from 0.8 to 1 per cent. Car use has been cut significantly.

The city council in York takes bike training very seriously. One-third
of 12-year-olds receive cycle training, and in 2002 more than 12 per
cent of York's secondary-school pupils chose to cycle to school. But the
city knows it has a long way to go because the number of cyclists has
dropped in the past decade. In 1994, 20 per cent of people cycled; today
it is nearer 10 per cent.

School safety-zones forcing drivers to slow down to 20 mph have been
introduced to most schools in the city; £4m has been targeted on key
pedestrian and cycle routes and cycle training; and £100,000 a year is
being spent on cycle sheds so children can safely leave their bikes at
school.

In Cambridgeshire, a partnership of 13 independent schools and two
sixth-form colleges has set up a website where parents use a password to
log in their travelling details. If they find a match with other
parents, they can save on travelling costs and the number of journeys.
Since this scheme and others were introduced five years ago, the
partnership has increased car sharing from 9 to 16 per cent, cycling
from 10 to 13 per cent, trains from 12 to 14 per cent and mini-buses to
2 per cent. Car use has declined from 41 to 29 per cent.

In Ilkley, West Yorkshire, Ben Rhydding primary has a walking bus and
has recently sent a questionnaire to parents asking them what kinds of
schemes they want. One idea yet to be tried out is for parents with
babies to park in a cul-de-sac a short distance from the school. Parents
will take it in turns to watch over the babies while the older children
are walked to Ben Rhydding.

Not everyone, however, likes sharing their cars with other children. And
some will never enter into the community spirit, no matter what the
incentive. As a result, shared transport may always be a minority
activity. And we have yet to see whether charging will have the effect
of pushing people back into cars. The best bet may be the walking bus -
at least for children who live close enough to school.

education@...





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]