School Streets is a scheme in the United Kingdom, Germany, Czechia, [1] Austria [2] and other countries, to suspend motor traffic access to roads outside schools, during drop-off and pick-up times. [3]
One of the first schools in the UK to trial the scheme was Gayhurst Community School in Hackney in 2018. As of November 2020, Transport for London has funded 430 new school streets. Legislatively, the scheme is achieved by restricting access to motor vehicles at certain times. [4]
Nearly two-thirds of UK teachers are in favour of roads around schools being closed. [5] A study has shown that School Streets reduce Nitrogen Dioxide levels by up to 23 per cent during morning drop-off. [6]
The scheme aims to: [7]
The programme is supported by Sustrans, a sustainable transport non-profit in the UK. [8]
In 2014 a group of Transport Planners from Camden Council went to visit Amsterdam and the surrounding areas to investigate innovations in the local area. A chance conversation with a local transport planner raised the idea of closing the streets outside schools at the start and end of the school day using fire gates.
In The Netherlands it is standard practice to avoid building schools by roads because of the danger caused by roads to children, and because roads by schools encourage more driving to school.
Further investigations highlighted individual examples of schools that had implemented measures like this which appeared to be associated with much better levels of walking or cycling to school - for example, Waingel's Copse School in Reading which banned student drop-off/pickup during the start and end of school day period.
In Camden, the idea evolved into "Healthy School Streets" involving folding bollards in the street being put up by school staff at the start and end of the school day, with road being formally closed by signage, and the staff merely implementing the bollards to enforce it. This initial school delivered significant reductions in driving to school, of the order of 50% in driven trips. [9]
At about the same time, Transport Planners in Edinburgh were working on their own "School Streets" project using signage, rather than folding bollards. [10]
From 2017 onwards, other local authorities, supported in some cases by Transport Planners at Camden providing advisory support, implemented further school streets using similar methodology - or in some cases using more expensive camera enforcement with fines, to allow some residents to be exempt from the road closures.
In March 2018, some parents in Belgium closed the road outside their school instead of going for coffee. They called the movement Filter-Café-Filtre. Over the next two weeks, 42 more schools joined as well. [5] In 2021 some London boroughs have a high proportion of school streets. In Merton, 41% of schools have a school street. [11] They are also being rolled out in Cumbria [12]
One limitation of the scheme is that the time restrictions during drop-off and pick-up only do not help to reduce pollution during other times when children are outside, and do not tackle the wider street network which would allow many more children to walk or cycle to school.
However, because once the schemes are implemented these weaknesses become apparent, highlighting the need for wider change, these measures can be a crucial step on the route to better streets. [4]
In 2021, some residents in Ilford, Greater London, opposed the introduction of 10 new School Streets in their borough, Redbridge. They said that the traffic would just move to another area. Instead, they favoured introducing a no stopping zone, which would allow through-traffic to continue. [13] To date, evidence suggests there is no displacement to nearby streets and that overall, motor traffic does decrease overall. [14]
Ilford is a large town in east London, England, 9 miles (14 km) northeast of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Redbridge, Ilford is within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It had a population of 168,168 in 2011, compared to 303,858 for the entire borough.
Camden Town, often shortened to Camden, is an area in the London Borough of Camden, around 2.5 miles (4.1 km) north-northwest of Charing Cross. Historically in Middlesex, it is identified in the London Plan as one of 34 major centres in Greater London.
Traffic calming uses physical design and other measures to improve safety for motorists, car drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. It has become a tool to combat speeding and other unsafe behaviours of drivers. It aims to encourage safer, more responsible driving and potentially reduce traffic flow. Urban planners and traffic engineers have many strategies for traffic calming, including narrowed roads and speed humps. Such measures are common in Australia and Europe, but less so in North America. Traffic calming is a calque of the German word Verkehrsberuhigung – the term's first published use in English was in 1985 by Carmen Hass-Klau.
Sustrans is a United Kingdom-based walking, wheeling and cycling charity, and the custodian of the National Cycle Network.
The London Cycling Campaign (LCC) is an independent membership charity lobbying for better conditions for cycling in London. Its vision is to make London "a world-class cycling city". It is one of the largest urban cycling organisations in the world, with over 11,000 members.
Shared space is an urban design approach that minimises the segregation between modes of road user. This is done by removing features such as curbs, road surface markings, traffic signs, and traffic lights. Hans Monderman and others have suggested that, by creating a greater sense of uncertainty and making it unclear who has priority, drivers will reduce their speed, in turn reducing the dominance of vehicles, reducing road casualty rates, and improving safety for other road users.
Legible London is a citywide wayfinding system for London, operated by Transport for London (TfL). The system is designed to provide a consistent visual language and wayfinding system across the city, allowing visitors and local residents to easily gain local geographic knowledge regardless of the area they are in. It is the world's largest municipal wayfinding system.
Traffic in Towns is an influential report and popular book on urban and transport planning policy published 25 November 1963 for the UK Ministry of Transport by a team headed by the architect, civil engineer and planner Colin Buchanan. The report warned of the potential damage caused by the motor car, while offering ways to mitigate it. It gave planners a set of policy blueprints to deal with its effects on the urban environment, including traffic containment and segregation, which could be balanced against urban redevelopment, new corridor and distribution roads and precincts.
In England and Wales, the Manual for Streets, published in March 2007, provides guidance for practitioners involved in the planning, design, provision and approval of new streets, and modifications to existing ones. It aims to increase the quality of life through good design which creates more people-oriented streets. Although the detailed guidance in the document applies mainly to residential streets, the overall design principles apply to all streets within urban areas.
Cycling is a popular mode of transport and leisure activity within London, the capital city of the United Kingdom. Following a national decline in the 1960s of levels of utility cycling, cycling as a mode of everyday transport within London began a slow regrowth in the 1970s. This continued until the beginning of the 21st century, when levels began to increase significantly—during the period from 2000 to 2012, the number of daily journeys made by bicycle in Greater London doubled to 580,000. The growth in cycling can partly be attributed to the launch in 2010 by Transport for London (TfL) of a cycle hire system throughout the city's centre. By 2013, the scheme was attracting a monthly ridership of approximately 500,000, peaking at a million rides in July of that year. Health impact analyses have shown that London would benefit more from increased cycling and cycling infrastructure than other European cities.
The A400 road is an A road in London that runs from Charing Cross to Archway in North London. It passes some of London's most famous landmarks.
The Wandle Trail is a 12.5-mile (20 km) walking and cycling trail that follows the River Wandle from Croydon to Wandsworth in south-west London.
Active mobility, soft mobility, active travel, active transport or active transportation is the transport of people or goods, through non-motorized means, based around human physical activity. The best-known forms of active mobility are walking and cycling, though other modes include running, rowing, skateboarding, kick scooters and roller skates. Due to its prevalence, cycling is sometimes considered separately from the other forms of active mobility.
Santander Cycles is a public bicycle hire scheme in London in the United Kingdom. The scheme's bicycles have been popularly known as Boris Bikes, after Boris Johnson who was Mayor of London when the scheme began operating.
Reading's location in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line and the M4 motorway, some 40 miles (64 km) west of London has made the town an important location in the nation's transport system.
Cycling infrastructure is all infrastructure cyclists are allowed to use. Bikeways include bike paths, bike lanes, cycle tracks, rail trails and, where permitted, sidewalks. Roads used by motorists are also cycling infrastructure, except where cyclists are barred such as many freeways/motorways. It includes amenities such as bike racks for parking, shelters, service centers and specialized traffic signs and signals. The more cycling infrastructure, the more people get about by bicycle.
Cycling in the United Kingdom has a long history, since the earliest days of the bicycle, and after a decline in the mid-20th century has been undergoing a resurgence in recent decades.
A modal filter, sometimes referred to as a point closure, is a road design that restricts the passage of certain types of vehicle in road transport. Modal filtering is often used to help create a low traffic neighbourhood (LTN), where motor traffic is diverted away from residential streets and instead toward feeder roads. Modal filters can be used to achieve filtered permeability within a transport network, and can encourage walking and cycling through more pleasant environments and improved safety.
In the United Kingdom, a Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) is an area in which filtered permeability and traffic calming are deployed to reduce motorised through-traffic in residential areas. Many LTNs were introduced in spring 2020, although the same principles had been in use in London since the 1970s.