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Auckland Transport has rebuffed allegations from the Automobile Association (AA) that it is disconnected from schools and needs to take safety around schools more seriously.
The AA surveyed 1600 members and also used information from its work with some central Auckland schools over the past two years. Among its findings was that there is “a desperate need for Auckland Transport (AT) to invest in simple safety infrastructure such as road signs around schools”.
In a press release, AA’s senior infrastructure advisor, Vanessa Wills, says that as the recent Regional Land Transport Plan (RLTP) increased funding for safety programmes, this will hopefully change.
“Parents want to let their kids walk or cycle to school – they don’t want to be negotiating tricky parking spaces, or experiencing the high-tension pick-up environment occurring at schools across the region,” Ms Wills says.
She says the solution could simply mean introducing things like variable speed signs, or more pedestrian crossings.
“The AA’s surveys indicate Auckland schools often feel disconnected from AT, lack a direct point of contact, and are struggling to get investment for simple safety infrastructure,” she says.
AT chief transport operations manager, Andrew Allen, denies this, saying the organisation is actively working with approximately 400 schools across the region through its Travelwise and walking school bus programmes.
“Each school has a community transport coordinator, who has direct contact in the school called a lead teacher,” Mr Allen says. “For most schools these relationships are very strong and work very well supporting them to promote road safety and active transport.”
He says AT’s community transport team works closely with other teams in AT on infrastructure issues or requests outside schools. However, he says it is worth noting that schools’ involvement in the programme is voluntary.
Mr Allen says that the numbers of children walking and cycling to school are very low, with only four percent of children riding bikes.
“Having more children walking and cycling to school will help ease congestion at the school gate, as well as being beneficial for children’s health. We agree that delivering safe infrastructure for children to walk and cycle to school is extremely important, and one of the best ways to give parents confidence to let their children walk or ride bikes to school. This will mean slowing down streets in schools and wider residential areas, improving road crossings, as well as delivering dedicated cycling infrastructure around the region.”
“We are more than willing to meet with schools to see how we can support them to provide active transport and road safety education for their students and parents,” he says.
Ms Wills notes that road safety funding has tripled in the recent RLTP and says that the AA wants to see a “decent chunk” of that go into schools across Auckland.
Road safety and active transport are significant priorities in the RLTP, which includes $491m for walking and cycling improvements (AT’s contribution), and $700m for road safety improvements. In addition, other projects will also include road safety and walking and cycling benefits.
