Northern schools in class of their own at Travelwise awards

MEDIA RELEASE

Thursday 20 June

Northern regional schools in a class of their own at Travelwise awards

It was another successful night for eight northern region schools taking gold at the annual Travelwise school awards held earlier this week. .

The region now has 26 gold Travelwise schools, more than any other region.

Gold is the highest award in the programme run by Auckland Transport. A gold school is achieving a four per cent or more reduction in the number of car trips to school and creating a real difference to traffic congestion, road safety and the well-being of their students, communities and the environment.

Each school was presented with certificates by Auckland Mayor Len Brown and Auckland Transport Chief Operations Officer Greg Edmonds at a special award ceremony on Tuesday night.

Auckland Transport’s Community Transport Manager, Matthew Rednall says it’s great to see these schools integrating sustainable road safety and active transport into the school culture.

“They are making a real contribution towards reducing school car travel and by their efforts are shaping and influencing their community to make better sustainable travel choices.

“We help schools to look at ways to make travelling to school safer for students by calming traffic down, building new footpaths, providing cycle training and licencing and finding safer places to cross the road. This is all part of the ongoing implementation of the Safe School Travel Plans,” says Mr Rednall.

267 schools across Auckland are involved in the Travelwise programme which represents 100,000 students. It has seen an increase of 5.2 per cent of students walking and cycling and 49 per reduction in pedestrian and cyclist crashes for pedestrians.

Being Travelwise and implementing a safe school travel plan is about improving safety outside the school gate and getting more students to walk, cycle, scoot, bus or train to school. Schools across the region are all contributing to the safety of Auckland’s transport network.

2012 Gold Travelwise schools:

• Greenhithe Primary School

• Huapai District School

• Orewa School

• Oteha Valley School

• Pinehill School

• Willowpark School

• Sunnynook Primary

• Warkworth School

ENDS

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