Call for traffic bans at schools at pick-up and drop-off times
CAMPAIGNERS are calling for traffic to be banned from streets outside some Welsh schools, after street closures in Scotland and England improved safety and reduced school-run traffic.
Temporary traffic bans are due to be trialled this term outside two Welsh primary schools, to gauge local reaction.
The Scottish and English street closures address concerns about parents using cars to drop off and collect children immediately outside schools. The restrictions apply only when children are entering or leaving school. There are exemptions for certain vehicles, such as Royal Mail vans, ambulances and cars belonging to people who live in those streets.
Steve Brooks, director of transport charity Sustrans Cymru, said: “Every parent wants to know that their child can travel to and from school safely, yet too many schools are situated on streets with dangerous traffic, bad parking and unsafe crossings.
“To make streets safer, we need to restrict traffic. As the new school term starts, Sustrans is working with Newport and Rhondda Cynon Taf councils to trial new measures that will make the streets around schools gates safer. It’s an approach Sustrans would like to see rolled out across Wales.”
Temporary traffic-calming measures, including closing the streets for limited periods, will be tried at Hawthorn Primary, near Pontypridd, and St David’s Primary, Newport.
Living Streets, the UK charity for “everyday walking”, also wants traffic restrictions around Welsh schools.
Chief executive Joe Irvin said: “The school run often sees our school streets become congested, stressful, even dangerous places at the start and end of the day.
“Living Streets’ research found that more than half of parents’ greatest worry about the school run is chaos outside the school gates. School street closures allow children to walk the last part of their journey to school without being surrounded by traffic, limiting traffic chaos and making families happier to walk.
“School street closures also improve the air around school gates, whilst children have the opportunity to move more, develop road safety skills and socialise.”
Neil Foden, chair of the NUT Cymru section of the National Education Union in Wales, said: “As an experiment, it’s worth trying at certain schools. Parking is a huge issue outside many, many schools. That ranges from the illegal, such as parking on zigzags or in bus drop-off spaces, to the inconsiderate. Either of those can lead to accidents.”
He said streets outside primary schools were “horrendously busy” in the mornings in the first weeks of the academic year, when parents park and take infant children to the gates rather than dropping them off.
Parking issues were not limited to primaries, he said. Some secondary schools had many pupils from outside the local area who were dropped off by parents on the way to work.
Edinburgh’s ‘School Streets’ pilot began outside nine primary schools in 2015 and 2016, with average traffic speeds reducing by 1.2mph, in the School Streets and in neighbouring streets. Airborne nitrogen oxide around the schools also reduced. Surveys in 2016 found there were 2,259 fewer vehicles in the School Streets and 920 more in the surrounding streets.
Traffic bans outside three schools in Croydon, south London, were introduced last September, enforced with fixed cameras and Automatic Number Plate Recognition. Setting up cost £145,000 and annual running costs are £55,000. More than 4,200 penalty notices were sent to drivers between October and May, netting £167,000 in fines for School Streets infringements.
Governors at one of the schools, Woodcote Primary, said: “Since the introduction of the pedestrian zone, it is noticeable how much safer the school road is at drop-off and pickup times.
“We had concerns that punctuality would become an issue, but when this same period is compared to last year the percentage of lateness has reduced slightly.
“We have had a range of views from our families, with many very supportive of the scheme… but it is also causing increased difficulties for some families due to timings for work and walking a greater distance with many small children, for example.”
The headteacher of Heavers Farm Primary also noted a slight decrease in pupil lateness and said this could result from parents dropping off earlier, before the traffic ban period.
“We have observed that more pupils are now using other modes of transport such as buses, cycling, walking and car-pooling.
“Despite the overall positives we have seen from this, there have been some complaints from residents that the scheme has pushed traffic into the outer roads, causing traffic buildup.”
Traffic reduced by 35% to 54% in school streets in Solihull, Birmingham, after restrictions began last September. The main complaint when the council consulted the public after six months was that the ban wasn’t enforced adequately. The UK Government prohibits the council from using cameras to enforce the bans, because Solihull is outside London. All Welsh councils can use cameras to enforce the rules for moving traffic.