Sustainable ways to school in two ARCHIMEDES cities
The consortium meeting of ARCHIMEDES in Donostia-San Sebastian last week was the perfect opportunity for the city of Monza to see how another city encourages children to walk and cycle to school.
Monza is running a “walking bus” just like a Public Transport Line for children to walk to school. Pupils designed the ten walking bus routes which are active since April 2011. Currently over 140 pupils are going to school in this way. The city of Monza is looking for good advice on how to keep the walking buses running after the ARCHIMEDES project. During a site visit early in the morning, Monza representatives visited the elementary school Ikasbide Ikastola located in a new urban development area. Isabel Prieto, measure leader of the City of San Sebastian, explained why and how the city has encouraged children and their parents to walk and cycle to school within their School Travel Plan measure: “The most important aim is to increase the autonomy of the children. We want to achieve that the children can walk or cycle to school by theirselves, like all children where used to do 40 years ago.” This is made possible by placing adults on crossings that keep an eye on the children to make sure children can cross safely. These adults can be parents, teachers and even the principal herself. Very young children are accompanied by their parents, while the older children are going to school on their own. To raise awareness and to inform car drivers the city has placed publication boards at the crossings. Simonetta Vittoria, Monza site manager, notes the difference with the measure in her city: “Walking buses with volunteer parents guiding children to school are the first steps towards San Sebastian's approach to home-school mobility, which is definitely the goal every city wants to reach.” All participants were impressed to see how much space in this new urban development area has been dedicated to pedestrians and cyclists. Everybody agreed that these are the ideal conditions for increasing walking and cycling to school.
Author: Isabel Prieto
