Getting to school the green way

School is back in session, and as students and their families begin to establish their school travel patterns for the year, GreenUP, in partnership with the Active and Safe Routes to School Peterborough Committee, is working to support active and healthy transportation.

Supporting and encouraging walking and biking to school can help students integrate physical activity into their daily routine – one of the best ways to ensure that children in our community are getting and staying active during this essential period in their physical development. Supporting active and efficient transportation also helps to reduce congestion in school zones, which improves local air quality and makes these environments safer for young people to travel through.

This year, GreenUP will be coordinating a Car Free School Days campaign at local city schools. This campaign encourages students to walk, bike or bus on the first Wednesday of each month, and helps to promote healthy travel patterns throughout the year. To support families as they try to adjust to car-free school travel, GreenUP also coordinated the development of unique school-travel maps, which indicate where sidewalks, safe crosswalk areas, designed drop-off zones, bike lanes, and crossing guards are located in the neighborhoods surrounding a specific school. To date, school travel maps have been developed for five local schools!