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A new draft School Travel Strategy for the city-region is being developed by Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and the 10 local authorities.
The strategy sets out the city-region’s vision for ensuring more children and young people travel to school and college in an active and sustainable way. Walking, wheeling, cycling and scooting to school or college has the potential to improve children and young people’s physical and mental health, and boost their attainment in lessons, while also reducing air pollution in communities and reducing congestion on the road network.
Every day around 460,000 pupils travel to over 1,200 schools and further education establishments across Greater Manchester. Around15% of all trips in Greater Manchester are to access education, and in the peak periods between 8-9am and 3-4pm almost half of trips are education related.
Active Travel Commissioner, Dame Sarah Storey, said:
“School Travel is one of my six priorities in the Active Travel Mission and it is important that we build on the positive impact of School Streets and broaden the scope of the work to make better use of all modes within the Bee Network for journeys to and from places of education.
“In order to enable young people and families to travel to school and further education on foot, bike or public transport; those choices need to feel safe, easy and accessible – and the draft School Travel Strategy sets out how we will be aiming to do this.
“A public consultation is being launched as part of this work so that we can better understand everyone’s journey needs and I hope pupils, parents, teachers and support staff at all of our education establishments will feed in to this so that we can refine the plans and make it work for everyone.”
As part of the draft strategy, Greater Manchester is aiming for 70% of primary school students in Greater Manchester to walk, wheel, scoot or cycle to school by 2030, up from 63% at present. At secondary schools, the goal is for 80% of pupils to walk, wheel or cycle or use public transport to travel to school, up from 74%. The target for young people going to college or further education is also 80%, up from 66%.
Targeted areas of proposed activity include:
- Creating safer streets around schools
- Continuing to deliver walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure
- Increasing access to cycle and secure cycle storage
- Supporting young people to become travel champions
- Improving the customer experience on public transport
- Making the Bee Network safe and secure
- Creating an integrated network
- Engaging schools and local communities
In addition, the draft School Travel Strategy sets out how the Bee Network will deliver more reliable, accessible and affordable bus services for children and young people.
Vernon Everitt, Transport Commissioner, said:
“Supporting journeys to school is a key function of the Bee Network. Our draft School Travel Strategy sets out how we want to enable young people and their families to make these essential journeys safely and reliably, while making the most of the opportunities presented by the Bee Network.
“Engaging with schools, colleges and communities will be key to the draft School Travel Strategy and we will be launching a public consultation in the coming weeks to progress with these conversations. Whether you’re a parent, teacher or part of a school community, we welcome your views.”
The draft strategy will be subject to a 10-week public consultation from November, following approval GMCA on Friday 25 October.