An imaginative painting turns a school crossing into protective, wave-like folds, symbolising care for children's journeys. It is a visual metaphor, not an engineering design.
A practical case for examining the whole journey, listening to families and improving streets before turning active travel into a participation target.
By Arbab Naseebullah Kasi, Chief Executive Officer - CEO, Feel Worldwide Foundation Inc.
A school can encourage walking with a colourful poster, a special week and an enthusiastic morning announcement. The more difficult question waits outside the gate: what happens along the route a child would actually have to take?
A short distance on a map may include a wide crossing, a broken pavement or a corner where parked vehicles block the view. A family may welcome the idea of walking and still have a sound reason for choosing another way to travel.
Before asking more children to walk, communities should examine whether the journey supports that choice. Encouragement has a place. So do street design, maintenance, accessible transport and the everyday decisions of drivers.
The goal should be a safer journey to education for every child, including those who cannot walk the whole distance or need an adapted vehicle. A rising participation count is useful only when we understand the conditions behind it.
Treat the journey as part of the school environment
The World Health Organization's road-traffic-injury fact sheet, dated 20 July 2026, estimates approximately 1.16 million road deaths annually worldwide and identifies road traffic injuries as the leading cause of death among children and young adults aged 5 to 29. These are global figures across road travel, not a count of school journeys or a measure of risk at any particular school. WHO road traffic injury fact sheet
The scale makes road safety a serious community concern. Local action, however, needs local understanding. A busy urban junction, a rural road without a footpath and a school entrance shared with delivery vehicles present different problems.
Schools cannot control every road surrounding them. They can still help make the problems visible, connect families with the responsible authority and include the journey in their planning. Community organisations can support that work by helping gather observations, making meetings accessible and following up on agreed actions.
This also changes the question asked of families. Rather than beginning with why they do not walk, ask what would need to change for a different journey to become practical. The answer might concern a crossing. It might concern distance, disability, personal security, weather or the timing of a caregiver's work. Those answers deserve to be heard without being ranked as evidence of commitment.
Look at the street from a child's position
WHO's guidance on children and road traffic injuries, published on 6 December 2023, explains that children's smaller stature can make it harder for them to see traffic and for drivers to see them. Younger children may also find it difficult to judge the proximity, speed and direction of moving vehicles. The guidance identifies speed control and improved infrastructure among the measures needed to protect children. WHO guidance on children and road traffic injuries
That is a reason to examine the environment carefully rather than expecting a safety lesson to resolve every hazard.
Consider a hypothetical school whose entrance is visible from a nearby housing block. The route appears simple to an adult looking at a map. On the ground, the crossing is behind a line of parked vans, and the pavement narrows where families wait.
Another reminder to be careful leaves both features unchanged. A useful response would document the visibility problem and the waiting space, then ask the responsible transport team to assess appropriate changes. The eventual design might require several measures. It should follow a competent assessment rather than a community group selecting equipment from a photograph.
Children can contribute valuable observations through supervised, age-appropriate activities. Adults should arrange that participation safely. Nobody needs to expose a child to a dangerous crossing to prove that it is dangerous.
Examine a complete route at the time it is used
A school-gate inspection is a starting point. Extend it to the crossings, bus stops and connecting paths that families use.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's walkability guide recommends choosing the location and participants deliberately and, near a school, observing at opening and closing times. Its checklist covers interrupted or blocked pavements, crossing difficulties, visibility, curb ramps and driver behaviour. It also encourages communities to work with transportation engineers on improvements. NHTSA walkability checklist guide
For a first review, keep the task manageable. Choose one commonly used route and record specific conditions from safe locations. Note the date, time and weather. Describe what can be observed rather than relying only on a general label such as dangerous or inconvenient.
For example, a useful record might identify the exact corner where parked vehicles obscure the crossing, when the obstruction occurs and which public body manages that street. Distinguish an observed event from something a participant reports. Both can matter, but they are different kinds of evidence.
Include people whose journeys differ. A route that works for a quick adult walker may present barriers to a child using a wheelchair or to a caregiver pushing a buggy. Invite school transport staff and residents to explain problems that are less visible during a single visit.
Protect privacy while gathering evidence. Photograph the street feature where possible, rather than identifiable children. Avoid publishing children's home addresses, individual routes or travel routines. A shared problem can be described without making a child's movements public.
There is evidence for changing the surroundings
A study by Charles DiMaggio and Guohua Li, published in 2013, examined New York City pedestrian injury data from 2001 to 2010. In census tracts with Safe Routes to School interventions, the annual rate of injury among pedestrians aged 5 to 19 during school-travel hours fell from 8.0 to 4.4 per 10,000 population between the pre-intervention period (2001 to 2008) and post-intervention period (2009 to 2010), a reported reduction of 44%. The corresponding rate in areas without those interventions remained at 3.1. Original study in Pediatrics
This was an observational evaluation in one city, not a randomised trial or a promise that another community will achieve the same result. Its population-based injury rates should not be described as the risk per walking trip.
The researchers' institution described the programme's measures as including new signals, dedicated pedestrian crossing times, speed humps, visible crossings and parking changes. That matters because the intervention involved physical and operational changes, rather than encouragement alone. Columbia University's January 2013 research summary
For local leaders, the practical lesson is to consider a coordinated response to the actual hazards. A poster, a crossing and a speed-management measure serve different functions. Selecting the easiest item to deliver does not establish that the main problem has been addressed.
Consider school streets without assuming they fit everywhere
Some communities restrict motor traffic near school entrances during arrival and departure. England's Department for Transport and Active Travel England describe this approach in guidance published on 19 November 2024. The guidance calls for a site-specific safety assessment and makes clear that a School Street is not suitable for every school. School Streets guidance for England
The appeal is understandable: reduce conflicting movements where children gather. The operational questions still require answers. Where will vehicles go? How will school transport reach its passengers? Who manages the scheme? What happens when a restriction is ignored?
The same guidance addresses exemptions for essential access, including school transport and pupils with disabilities who require a car. It also warns that exempt vehicles may still be present. This is an England-specific implementation framework, not permission to copy its legal arrangements elsewhere. Access and safety provisions in the guidance
Community enthusiasm should feed into an authorised process. Volunteers should not improvise road closures, direct live traffic or install street features without the necessary authority, assessment and training.
A smaller improvement may be more appropriate at a particular location. The choice should follow the problem, the needs of users and professional advice.
Make room for families who need another way to travel
A safer walking route and reliable school transport can support the same goal. They should be planned together.
Some children live too far away to walk. Others need assistance, adapted transport or a carefully managed drop-off. A caregiver may combine several school journeys with work or care responsibilities. These circumstances should shape the plan rather than become exceptions discovered after launch.
Avoid activities that publicly rank children by their method of arrival. A child should not have to explain a disability, household arrangement or family difficulty to justify missing a walking challenge.
Instead, provide several ways to participate in a road-safety project. Pupils might help identify unclear information, discuss considerate driving or contribute ideas about an accessible entrance. Participation can mean helping improve the journey, regardless of the transport a family uses.
For community organisations, useful support may be administrative and practical: arranging an accessible discussion, translating a consultation notice or helping families send observations to the right office. Listen before deciding what help is needed.
Measure conditions, including what happens nearby
A quieter school entrance does not tell the whole story if hazardous parking has shifted around the corner.
Welsh Government guidance published on 27 March 2025 recommends collecting baseline information before a School Street begins, using comparable methods and similar times and seasons for later monitoring. It specifically includes traffic on surrounding streets so that displacement can be examined, alongside feedback from pupils, teachers and other stakeholders. Welsh Government monitoring and evaluation guidance
That approach is useful beyond a formal School Street. Decide in advance what improvement you expect and how you will check it. If the problem is a blocked view, inspect visibility. If it is difficult access, ask the people affected to assess whether access has improved. If speed is the concern, seek appropriate measurement through the responsible authority.
Walking counts can provide context, but they should sit beside safety and accessibility information. Record changes in attendance, weather or transport arrangements that could affect comparisons. A short before-and-after review can identify issues without proving that one intervention caused every observed change.
Keep a route for reporting new problems after the first review. Streets, parking patterns and school arrangements change. Someone should know who receives a concern and who is responsible for responding.
Begin with one route and a clear request
A community does not need to solve its entire transport network before taking a useful first step.
Choose one route with the school and affected families. Gather a small set of precise observations safely. Identify the authority responsible for each issue. Then request an assessment, a meeting or a specific maintenance response, rather than leaving the concern as a general appeal to make things safer.
Keep track of what was requested, the response received and the next agreed step. Separate immediate maintenance needs from changes requiring design work, consultation or funding. Share progress in language families can understand, including where uncertainty or disagreement remains.
Walking to school can become a more realistic choice when the surroundings support it. The order matters: understand the journey, reduce its hazards and preserve access for those who need another route or mode.
Before asking children to change how they travel, give serious attention to the street they would have to use.
