Six in 10 Vorarlberg children walk or cycle to school

Six in 10 children in Vorarlberg travel to school or kindergarten by bicycle or on foot, according to a survey by Austria’s Mobility Ministry reported by ORF. School resumes in the province on the Monday after next.

The study, “Active Mobility 2026”, found that 47 percent of children and young people up to 15 walk to school every day. Among children under six, the figure refers to journeys to kindergarten. Another 13 percent cycle there daily.

In addition, 15 percent walk to school several times a week and 17 percent cycle several times a week.

“Lack of exercise is an increasing problem among children and young people,” said Klara Maria Schenk, an expert at the VCÖ, an Austrian transport organisation. She said the journey to school offered children the chance to exercise regularly five days a week and twice a day, and called for urban and local transport planning that would make walking and cycling safer.

The VCÖ called for continuous, sufficiently wide pavements, traffic calming and speed limits of 30 kilometres per hour instead of 50 in residential areas. It also said crossings should be designed so that parked cars and other objects do not block drivers’ view of children, and that distracting advertising boards should be removed from junctions.

Vorarlberg has a higher proportion of children cycling to school than Austria as a whole. Thirty percent cycle either daily or several times a week in the province, compared with 21 percent nationwide.

The number of children cycling in a town or municipality is a good indicator of the quality of its cycling infrastructure, the VCÖ said. Where many children cycle, parents tend to view the conditions as safe and suitable; where few do, they do not. The transport organisation said children should be accompanied by an adult when cycling to school until they have passed their cycling test or reached the age of 12.

The VCÖ said school routes were safer than leisure routes because of measures including school crossing patrols. School journeys also help children learn how to behave correctly in traffic, Schenk said, adding that children driven to school by their parents miss this opportunity.

Parents who identify dangerous or problematic points on a child’s route to school should report them to the local authority and school management, the VCÖ said. This would allow the responsible bodies to assess and address the problem more quickly.

With the start of school, more children will be on the roads, Schenk said. Drivers should be particularly attentive and considerate. Under Austria’s road traffic rules, children are exempt from the principle of trust, and drivers may approach a pedestrian crossing only at a speed that allows them to stop before it if necessary.