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Being active is important to good health, but it is increasingly difficult to draw people out of their homes to do anything that is more physical than pushing the buttons on the television remote.
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Like many things, the habits of being active start when we are young, so it stands to reason we need to focus on making sure young people walk, bike and play active games.
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One of the simplest ways for youth to get some outdoor exercise is to walk or bike to school.
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But many students, even those living near their schools are still not getting to school in an active way, but rather are being dropped off by parents driving their cars and SUVs.
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Monday, the Yorkton Active Transportation Collaborative (YATC) attended the regular meeting of Yorkton Council to present early findings on the School Travel Planning Project being carried out with Columbia and St. Mary’s Schools.
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In the fall of 2015 Yorkton Active Transportation Collaborative partnered with Saskatchewan in motion, Heart and Stroke Foundation and RioCan to introduce and pilot School Travel Planning in Yorkton. We were very pleased when Columbia Elementary School and St. Mary’s Elementary School came on board to run pilots at each of their schools.
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The pilot is working to address the barriers to make walking to and from school the safe and easy choice for those attending the schools. This meets the vision of the Yorkton Active Transportation Collaborative that Yorkton chooses…Active Transportation to create a safe, healthy, and connected community where we live, work, learn and play, detailed the presentation.
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It is interesting that not so many years ago walking to school, to the local arena to play hockey, to the neighbourhood park to play was just second nature for youngsters.
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We live in a decidedly different world today though, and sending a youngster out alone to walk down the street, even if it’s to the safe environ of a school, is not something many parents are comfortable with.
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The School Travel Planning process will cover a three-year period, with the initial year having been completed focusing on determining the baseline of the attitudes, behaviours and observations to using active transportation to and from school.
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Some of the results so far:
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• Just over 95 families completed and returned family surveys: of these 40 per cent indicated driving as the usual mode of transportation to and from school. Parents, caregivers provide a variety of reasons for driving children to school.
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• The team also completed traffic counts/observations and walkabouts to give us a good idea of the kinds of Action Plan items that could potentially have the biggest impact on increasing the number of students choosing active forms of travel to get to/from school.
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• The parent responses of why their children don’t walk/cycle included;
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-- It is a convenience/time aspect to drop their children off at school
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-- Distance from the school; however, in the findings 40 per cent lived two km or less from the school
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-- Personal safety issues and traffic danger both contribute to the security and wellbeing of students on their journey to/from school.
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It is of course the concerns over safety which is being addressed first, with efforts to improve school zone awareness and improve crossing safety.
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But the bigger issue will be changing the attitudes of parents, who are often on the way to work so dropping youth off at school is convenient and seen as keeping control of their safety home door to school door.
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If parents are not at ease with their children walking to school it will not be part of their early development to be active.
