Will it even catch on?
Chris Bruntlett links to The Scotsman:.
A groundbreaking trial to ban cars from streets surrounding 11 city primary schools at drop-off times is to get underway in Edinburgh.
Roads within 300 metres of schools will be sealed off to traffic for 30 minutes before and after the start and end of the school day under the pioneering plans that have attracted more than a third of Capital primaries.
In total 31 schools had asked to take part in the pilot project which is set to come into force by the summer term of 2015. …
City transport convenor Cllr Lesley Hinds, said: “We were really delighted with the level of interest from schools right across Edinburgh so we wanted to make sure we rolled out the pilot scheme to as many school communities as we could. The next stage is to take the proposals out for consultation in each of the school communities, starting with the five sites (six schools) in Phase 1.”
This is great timing. I’ve recently been very frustrated by the traffic jam at St John’s school on West 10th in the mornings and how they don’t seem to have a problem with blocking a bike route every day. Good to know other cities are tackling this problem.
Author
Mike
Send in a pic. We want photographic evidence!
I’ve heard similar frustrations from cyclists at that location, particularly in the mornings. I’ll ask them for photos. Maybe Ken could help out.
Hi Mike, Gord, Jeff: I’ll be riding past there tomorrow at around 9 am, which may be a bit late. Also on Monday Oct 27 at around 8 am on my way to BtWW stations.
I’ll try to oblige.
If you are looking for bad examples, I recommend checking out UHill Elementary at 3pm. Mornings around 9 are marginally better, but not by much.
The road to the school is entirely blocked by cars double and triple parking, and kids on bikes and on foot are left to battle it out on the narrow sidewalk. Literally. Bikes bumping into kids. Kids pushing others to move faster, car doors opening into the stream of kids. A complete mess everywhere.
The principle and staff take turns ushering the cars through and making sure divers don’t do anything totally insane. The whole mess spills onto Chancellor Blvd, with cars backed up coming from both directions. Add some parents with bike trailers on the road, a the completely overcrowded and sub-standard pathway on the south side with roots breaking up the asphalt and some dangerously sloped driveways onto Chancellor.
I guess we should be grateful for having a traffic light to cross a 4 lane road there, MOTI and UBC are refusing to put in traffic lights on 16th for the two new schools.
Indeed !
Welcome to University of Big Cars where cars are still king !
Forgot to mention. The road to the school gets partially closed with a chain after all the kids get to school and the cars left, to be opened again before school is out to let the cars drive right up to the front door. Just the opposite of what they are doing in Edinburgh.
It seems odd that this big news is fundamentally about changing a society’s priorities to favour childrens’ safety over speed and convenience for motorists.
Parents at Vancouver Acadamy of Music park in the travelled lane on Whyte Ave waiting for their children – across from the Planetariums’ empty lot.