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Reduce traffic and get your kids road smart
23 February 2017
Reduce traffic and get your kids
road smart
Next week is Walking School Bus Week, a chance to celebrate kids and volunteers helping keep traffic volumes down and learning about road safety on their way to school.
The week will be action packed, including AMI Be Bright Be Seen Monday, Funky Feet Tuesday, Whacky Wednesday, Super Walker Thursday and The Giant Walk on Friday. The Northern Stars, along with Police dogs are joining Drury School who will be doing their ‘Giant Walk’ on Wednesday.
Over the past year the Auckland Transport programme, which is available to schools all over Auckland has grown to 3900 children walking on 350 school bus routes. The programme is overseen by AT staff who work with parent volunteers to design safe walking routes for school children to walk to school with a supervised walking bus, rather than be driven to school.
Manager of Walking, Cycling & Safety Kathryn King says, “There are so many great things about this programme. One of the best things we see is kids learning about keeping themselves safe when they are out around cars and other vehicles. Being on a walking school bus is an ideal time to build confidence in a child and at the same time they are getting fit, meeting other kids in their neighbourhood and having fun.
“We also see a huge decrease in congestion during the school holidays of around 10% which means that kids walking to school positively impacts on journey times around the city. And hopefully, children walking or riding their bike or scooter will be tomorrow’s commuter who has seen the benefits of staying out of the car.”
Mayor Phil Goff is joining a walking school bus to his old primary school, Three Kings School on Friday 3 March. “I’m a huge fan of walking school buses. If we can get kids safely walking to school as we used to do, we can help to significantly reduce morning peak hour traffic congestion.
“When we are worried about growing child obesity, it’s also good to encourage our children to get some fresh air and exercise by walking to and from school.”
Volunteers interested in starting a walking school bus or parents keen to get their kids on a bus should look for more information at: www.at.govt.nz/walkingschoolbus
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