It’s time to reclaim streets for our kids
This weekend dawned grey and fearful in west Auckland. The brutal assault of an 11-year-old boy, grabbed off the street on his way home from school, shook New Zealanders. And nowhere more so than in the neighbourhood of Ranui where it happened.
People could have huddled at home. But these are Westies. Like the people of Kaikoura and Wellington at the start of the week, like those of Ngaruawahia yesterday, they refused to be cowed. Instead, several thousand stepped out at the Henderson Christmas Festival yesterday. They stood together. They had, said local community board member Will Flavell, ‘‘an awesome time’’.
That same kidnapping might have given us pause, before launching our campaign to get our kids out of the cars, and back walking, cycling and scooting to and from school.
But rather, it reinforces the deeper message: New Zealand communities must reclaim the streets for our kids. And so today, I’m delighted to invite Kiwis the length of this country to pledge their support to a campaign to support our families and kids to Foot It to school.
Since the 1980s, the proportion of children being dropped off in a car has doubled to nearly 55 per cent. With it has come worsened air pollution, greater congestion, and increased danger as more kids are involved in road accidents. Schools can sometimes be reduced to faceless institutions where parents and teachers don’t know each other, rather than the hearts of our communities that they can and should be.
We know people are busy, so we’re encouraging families to choose one day a week when they and their kids walk, scoot, cycle – ride a horse, even!
We’re backing schools to set up walking buses. We wrote to mayors urging them to lower speed limits outside schools, and many have expressed their support. We talked to well-known New Zealanders with school-aged kids, who united behind the campaign.
Transport minister Simon Bridges has two sons who are about to start school: ‘‘We’re all busier, we’re all trying to do 10 things,’’ he says. ‘‘But I do sense a bit of a change in the attitude.’’
He highlights the Government’s $333 million investment in cycle projects. But he also says, quite rightly, that this is not just about politicians throwing money at the problem. It’s about changing attitudes. This has to be led at a local level, by families, schools and their communities.
There’s a steep road that runs down towards my 6-year-old son’s primary school. He loves it – he leans forward over the handlebars on his little Raleigh, and boots it.
The other week, we got to the bottom and slowed down as we approached his school. A car came screaming up from behind, and as it overtook us, the guy in the passenger seat yelled an obscenity out the window at us.
We know 99.9 per cent of Kiwis want to build communities that support healthy activity, that minimise congestion and air pollution, that believe families spending time together makes our neighbourhoods better places. To do that, we need to work together to find some smarter solutions.
neighbourly.co.nz/footit