Hackney Council says the rollout of School Streets to almost all primary schools in the borough will help 14,000 more children walk and cycle to school.
Nine School Streets are already in place in the borough, with evidence from the first four showing that traffic reduced by an average of 68% and the number of children cycling to school increased by 51%.
A further 40 schemes are being rolled out this term, thanks to a successful bid for £350k from Transport for London’s Streetspace programme.
The first 30 of these have already gone live – with the remainder set to follow later in the Autumn.
As part of the schemes, roads outside schools are closed to motor traffic for an hour at opening and closing times to help encourage more parents, children and staff to walk and cycle.
Cllr Jon Burke, Cabinet Member for Energy, Waste, Transport and Public Realm, said: “With children returning to school, it’s more important than ever that we support them to walk and cycle and maintain social distancing at the school gates, especially as public transport capacity remains significantly lower than before lockdown.
“Our rollout of School Streets to almost all primaries in the borough represents the biggest School Streets programme in the country, and will help 14,000 more children walk and cycle to school.
“It’s part of our set of radical measures to rebuild a greener Hackney in the wake of the pandemic, securing some of the benefits that lockdown saw – like cleaner air, less traffic and more active travel – and tackling the road safety and air quality crises we already faced in Hackney before the pandemic struck.”
10 September 2020