School Streets: guidance for local authorities - 6. Other ways to support school travel

A School Street is not always the best or only solution for improving school travel. There are many other interventions that can help encourage safer, more sustainable journeys to and from school. These can be used before, alongside, or instead of a School Street.

Taking steps to promote active and sustainable travel can help shift travel habits and build support for change. If a School Street is later introduced, these efforts will make it more likely to succeed. But even if a School Street is not pursued, other measures can still make a significant difference.

Schools should consider a range of options to improve school travel and monitor their impact. Below are some examples of interventions that can help create a safer and healthier school environment.
 

Before considering a School Street, schools should develop an Active Travel School Plan (ATSP).

An ATSP contains evidence about school travel patterns and identifies actions to enable safer and more sustainable travel.

Schools lead this work, but the best plans will involve the wider school community.

Plans should be reviewed and updated regularly, with evidence of changes in pupils' travel habits and the impact of any initiatives.

Sustrans has resources and templates to support schools to develop ATSPs.

Initiatives that aim to provide pupils and their parents/carers with the information, skills and confidence they need travel actively include:

• identifying and mapping safe walking, wheeling and cycling routes to school
• producing walking, wheeling and cycling zone maps (these depict the area within a 5-10 minute walk, wheel or cycle of the school gate and address the common tendency to overestimate walking and wheeling times and distances)
• teaching pupils about the health and environmental benefits of sustainable travel
• providing pedestrian skills training for younger pupils
• giving pupils with Additional Learning Needs or disabilities access to Independent Travel Training
• offering cycle training and embedding this within learning activities
• introducing balancing, scooting and cycling games and activities as part of PE, breaktimes and other school activity

Ways to get the school community interested in and excited about active travel, and ultimately choosing to walk, wheel or cycle to school, include:

• taking part in organised challenge events such as Living Streets’ Walk to School Week and Sustrans’ Big Walk and Wheel
• establishing school clubs for scooting and cycling
• running a reward scheme for pupils who walk, wheel and cycle to school such as Living Streets’ WOW walk to school challenge and Sustrans' Active Travel School Award
• setting up a walking bus or a bike bus
• as part of community consultation, organise a Play Street outside the school to enable temporary street play. These are often resident-led but can also be school-led. Play sessions take place on streets outside the school when the teaching day ends, often running once a term, but can be more frequent. Organising a Play Street will enable engagement with residents and the wider community. It will also show parents and children what they can expect if the area becomes a School Street

Consideration should also be given to including pupils who live further away from school and are reliant on public transport or car as the main mode for their journey. 

Pupils using public transport can be encouraged to get off at an earlier stop and to walk the remainder of their journey. 

Similarly, some pupils who are reliant on a car might be encouraged to ‘park and stride’, parking away from the school and walking the remainder of the journey. In some areas, it may be possible to set up an official park and stride point a walkable distance from a school by gaining permission, for instance, from a local supermarket or village hall to use their car park for this purpose.

Physical improvements can be made to routes to school to make them safer and to ensure that they are fully accessible. Interventions could include improving the surface quality and width of footways, installing dropped kerbs, providing additional safe crossing points and introducing various traffic calming measures including lower speed limits and road narrowing.

Local authorities may also consider installing gateway features such as planters or modal filters. It may be possible to create a School Street purely by physical changes to the area outside the school that restrict vehicular access.

Mapping postcodes of pupils, mapping routes to school and conducting walking and wheeling ‘street audits’ of common routes can help to identify barriers to active travel and prioritise improvements. It is important to involve pupils in these audits and local authorities and active travel organisations can often provide guidance and support to schools.

In addition to physical improvements to the surrounding highway, consideration should be given to improving facilities on the school site. Providing sufficient levels of cycle parking and secure storage for scooters and buggies will ensure that pupils and parents/carers are not deterred from walking, wheeling and cycling by a lack of facilities at their destination.