How catchment changes can encourage active transportation
Hannah Richardson – Director at PSA Consulting
As a transport planner and traffic engineer, I think about travel mode choice a lot. My family loves to walk and ride. It’s influenced our decision to live close to safe paths, take public transport where we can and even had an impact on which community activities we participate in every week.
Each time we drive somewhere, I think about what lesson that choice is teaching my children. When it came time to plan our kids’ short daily walks or bike rides to and from school, we were disappointed to learn that our commitment to active transportation would face a major hurdle…
School catchment areas and walkability
Sadly, my definition of what would be our “closest school” differed from that of the Queensland Government. The current process of determining catchment boundaries is based on the trafficable road network – and doesn’t factor in walking distance.
For my family, this meant that although our closest school was only a 600-metre walking distance from our home, we were outside its catchment area because the driving distance was much further.
Our local catchment school, or “closest school” according to the state government, was a different one that was a 1.4 kilometre walk away – and across a major road!
I’ve since learnt of similar circumstances across the state, where families that have a close walking path to a school (like across a creek or through a park) get pushed out of the catchment because those routes are not trafficable.
Active transport matters – especially for kids
We all know the benefits of active travel – from better physical and mental health to a lower environmental impact.
According to Professor Sharyn Rundle-Thiele from Griffith University, “Children who walk or bicycle to school are less stressed, perform better at school and have more positive emotional experiences than those who arrive by car.”
Queensland was once a state where most students walked, rode bikes or caught public transport to school. However, Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) highlights how much our habits have changed.
Less than 30% of kids travelled to and from school by car 40 years ago. Over 65% do today. Many factors have led to this decline in active transport use, from wider safety concerns to even heavier school bags.
However, I believe that a legacy focus on designing communities around car transportation and policies that have perhaps unintentionally promoted car travel (like this catchment boundary process) have been significant contributors.
Nobody likes the madness of school drop-off, and safety issues that arise when there are too many cars around schools are especially worrying – so what can be done about it?
How we can change the status quo
Thankfully, I have hope that we can see change. This policy of “trafficable distance” for school catchments may be quite old, because it contradicts the Queensland Government’s current strategic goals around active transportation. These include:
I’m confident that we can see this policy shifted to align with the great work that local councils and state governments are doing to build more walkable and liveable communities.
I would recommend that the Queensland Government update the process of determining school catchment boundaries to be primarily based on “walkable catchments” as opposed to it being a discretional provision.
Relevant and up-to-date data for pathways is already readily available. Including this reform as part of the regular review of catchments would:
Be a cost-effective, non-infrastructure solution that requires minimal policy and process changes
Help governments make the most of existing and planned active transport infrastructure
Achieve stated transport goals and broader health outcomes for local communities
See some of the active transport strategies that PSA has completed in partnership with governments across Australia.