Looking at ways to encourage youth to be physically active is unfortunately something which is much needed these days.
It is increasingly rare to see youth being outside being active is a rarer thing.
Big screen televisions, surround sound, hundreds of television channels, the Internet, and game systems are among the elements which keep many people inside.
So it takes planning today to get people outside and active.
That is why the School Travel Planning Initiative by the Yorkton Active Transportation Collaborative and Saskatchewan in motion is such an intriguing one for our community.
Many of us who are few decades past our last school year will remember walking, or biking to school, as just something we did every day, usually rain, shine, or blustery January day.
But we live in a different world today.
A bus system now criss-crosses our city to transport in-city youth to and from school. The system is a relatively new one, only a couple of decades old.
It is easy to consider the bus system was seen as a safer way for youth to get to school, but it is a system with a cost, both in terms of bus operations and in terms of adding to youth inactivity.
Certainly safety on a walk to school is paramount.
Principals of four schools involved with the initiative; Dr. Brass, Columbia, St. Mary’s and St. Paul’s all held a common concern from parents, that being safety. With that in mind all four schools have carried out traffic counts at their schools during the times students are arriving and leaving.
In addition to the high numbers of vehicles on some of the school streets there is a related concern over those which speed through the school zones.
Those are legitimate concerns for a parent, but there are options beyond buses.
Greg Sturtz, principal at St. Mary’s School said something needs to be done to slow down traffic in some areas, noting Gladstone Avenue and Independent Street “are like racetracks.”
Sturtz said traffic is clearly a parental concern.
“A lot of parents are reluctant to have kids walks that way,” he said.
Yorkton Mayor Bob Maloney said Council has discussed the idea of photo radar in school zones in the city to help deal with the speeding issue.
“We’re ready to go ahead,” he told an initiative stakeholders’ meeting last week, but added they have not been given the green light by SGI. “There are some hoops to go through.”
But it is something Maloney sees as a good deterrent.
“People do slow down when their pocketbook is at risk,” he said.
It will take work, planned students walking corridors, clean sidewalks in winter, better traffic controls and other steps to help parents be confident is letting their children walk to school, but it is a good way to ensure active youth, and are worth exploring, and just maybe the buses will no longer be required.
