There are buses and buses and some are magical. They can avoid traffic and travel on pavements. There’s no risk of dangerous driving. Parents trust them with their children. The police clear their way. A giant lollipop greets the children along the route, when they need to cross the street.
Meet the bus with no wheels: the walking bus. It’s an organised commute for children, walking in an orderly file from home to school, along set routes while accompanied by adults, with the assistance of community police and ‘lollipop officers’, crossing guards who warn traffic of children crossing the street.
By walking together in a group, children are better seen by passing vehicles and can be easily monitored. Moreover, the walk serves as a form of social interaction both for the children and also for the wider community.
The walking bus is a success in many towns in Europe. And now we are trying it out in Malta, with the cooperation of local councils, schools and the police.
Good sense suggests walking buses would be an answer to many parents’ prayers. In Malta, most children live within walking distance of their schools.
The average car commuting journey is only 5.5km and there is great potential to encourage walking, cycling and other solutions as faster and cleaner alternatives means to cars. School walks are, on average, even shorter: one kilometre or less, a 10- to 20-minute walk.
However, other factors complicate matters. Parents often refrain from sending their children to school on foot because inadequate pedestrian infrastructure makes walking unsafe in heavy traffic. Other parents might have a busy schedule and don’t have the time to walk their children themselves, so they resort to dropping them off by car on their way to work.
It’s a pity. Walking to school is physical activity that promotes healthy habits and independence in children while reducing traffic and pollution in our urban areas.
Spontaneous walking buses have already been organised in Malta in various localities. However, they mainly depend on the efforts of a motivated parent or else school staff to lead and coordinate the initiative.
This is where the Project Aegle Foundation (PAF) has decided to step in and help out. PAF is an NGO working to promote sustainable mobility solutions in Malta. As the new school year begins, we are collaborating with Transport Malta, the Siġġiewi primary school, the Siġġiewi local council and the community police on a project we are calling ‘sCOOL2walk’.
This pilot project promotes safe walking among children and youths in several ways. We are creating a web application, a scool2walk app, that connects parents and students who want to share their commute to school.
In Malta, most children live within walking distance of their schools- Camille Bon
The community police will assist some days by escorting the walking bus and support with traffic management in the school perimeter.
The app aims to provide a solution to parents who cannot walk their kids to school due to a tight schedule by matching their children to a verified parent or walking buddy and selecting meet-up points. The application is also intended to encourage children and their guardians to embrace the healthy habit of walking to school.
In parallel, we are looking to recruit crossing guards and the lollipop officers to walk with children and parents or to help them cross the streets safely and ensure that everyone arrives at school with a smile on their face.
Anyone can be a lollipop officer, provided they are approved by parents and have a clean police conduct certificate. We are thinking in particular of retired people keen on giving some of their time and kindness to the community.
Although the current project is in Siġġiewi, there have been other localities, as diverse as San Ġwann and Safi, involved in pilot projects in the recent past. In June, we had a trial in Siġġiewi that was met with great enthusiasm by children and parents alike. The initial plan was to try the walking bus once a week but the parents enthusiastically expressed the interest to conduct it daily.
One parent told us: “The presence of the accompanying police officer gave us so much security walking from busy Santa Margarita Street. I really enjoyed walking today without feeling scared and stressed.”
Initially, we had four parents and seven children involved. By the end of the pilot phase, we had garnered the participation of over nine parents and 14 children – and added a walking route.
We want to grow the project further – both in Siġġiewi and elsewhere.
We are looking for people to help us make the walking bus a ‘centipede’ with 100 happy legs.
The project and web application will officially launch in mid-October. Care to join?
Camille BonFollow us on Facebook Project Aegle or shoot us an e-mail to info@paf.mt.
The scool2walk project is supported and co-funded by EIT Urban Mobility, an initiative of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of European Union.
Camille Bon is project manager at Project Aegle Foundation.