OK, that headline probably isn’t that surprising. But, now that we’re officially into election mode, the Green Party has fired the first salvo in the transport arena by targeting the trip to school. Their “Safe Walking and Cycling to School” policy is asking why half of New Zealand’s kids cycled or walked to school 25 years ago but now most of them are driven to school.
The Greens propose to help reverse that by investing $50 million a year over four years targeted at safe walking/cycling routes to school. This would be part of a ring-fenced $100 million/year dedicated for walking and cycling projects (by way of comparison, the current annual walking/cycling transport fund is ~$20 million/yr). Schools would be able to work with their local authorities to apply for the funds to develop safer walk/cycle infrastructure in their neighbourhoods and associated education/promotion to encourage more active transport.
This is a nice tangible proposal that would go a long way towards addressing the concerns that people have about letting their kids walk and bike to school. A lot of that concern is traffic danger (perceived or real), so being able to provide separated pathways, quiet streets, and safe crossing facilities would no doubt help immensely. Introducing greater provision of cycle training around the country also helps to develop our kids into better riders who are less likely to make basic mistakes when riding. Kids get to walk and bike (which many of them would love to do more) and get more daily exercise in the process (said to be better for their ability to concentrate at school). Given that up to one-third of all trips in the morning rush-hour are related to travel to/from education, it could also have the nice side-effect of reducing general traffic congestion.
It’s a clever approach to target “doing it for the kids”; many of the target audience can remember when they used to walk/bike to school but worry about that option for their own children. What you’ll find too is that many of the network improvements that come out of it will also benefit adults who want to walk and cycle in their neighbourhoods as well. The Greens have even put up an online survey to elicit information about what improvements you’d like to see around your local school(s).
It will be interesting to see whether the other major parties come out with any policies in related areas of transport (and we’ll let you know if they do). I see that Labour has already said they would probably support the Greens’ policy but need to “check the costings first” (that can’t be hard; they propose taking it from some of the very uneconomic but cash-gobbling Roads of National Significance projects). However, typically transport doesn’t get a high profile during elections, with the media focusing on issues like the economy, health and education. Ironically a policy like that proposed by the Greens could go a long way towards contributing to all three of these areas…
What do you think of the Green Party’s School Walking/Cycling policy?