The District of North Vancouver’s School Travel Planning (STP) pilot program works one-on-one with an elementary school in the District of North Vancouver to promote safe and active school travel through education and engagement events. Active transportation modes include walking, cycling, scooting, skateboarding, using a wheelchair, and any other type of human powered transportation.
The District and the STP facilitation team collaborates with a number of external partners to encourage active transportation, including the North Vancouver School District, the City of North Vancouver, TransLink, ICBC, Vancouver Coastal Health, and North Vancouver Recreation and Culture Commission.
For the 2018-2019 school year, the District worked with École Boundary Elementary, which is located at 750 26th Street East, on the border of the District of North Vancouver and the City of North Vancouver. École Boundary Elementary currently has approximately 360 students.
École Boundary students travel to and from school by a number of modes, including being driven by family, carpooling, walking, cycling, scootering, and other active modes. The school has a French immersion program for grades 6 and 7, which brings in new students from across North Vancouver. This includes students who live outside the catchment, which often means that they are driven to school. Despite this, approximately half of Boundary students walk to and from school.
The STP process at Boundary included a number of meetings and events that were geared towards safe and active travel. A community walkabout took place to explore infrastructure issues on the school grounds and in the catchment. Next, two surveys were also conducted to collect baseline data: a classroom survey and an online family survey. Two engagement events also took place throughout the school year: a Fall Walk to School Celebration and a Spring Walk& Roll Challenge, which took place over 8 weeks and involved classrooms competing for the Brilliant Bobcat Award and a pizza party grand prize. Additionally, STP facilitators hosted a visioning session with grade 4/5 students, which resulted in the following school travel vision for École Boundary Elementary
Throughout the process, this School Travel Plan was drafted. The purpose of this document is to summarize the STP process for École Boundary Elementary and provide action items to improve safety and further encourage active school travel. These actions are based on conversations with school administration, the BPAC, and school district, as well as the community walkabout and survey responses. The Action Plan is a living document that should be reviewed and updated regularly to ensure it stays current and relevant.
The action items are divided into four categories: Education and Encouragement, Enforcement, Evaluation, and Engineering. Recommendations include promoting active school travel through school communications and events, partnering with agencies such as TransLink and HUB to provide education, and updating municipal infrastructure where feasible to enhance the active transportation network. The entity responsible for implementing each action is listed in the Action Plan tables.
The District of North Vancouver and external partners such as the North Vancouver School District will play an important role in supporting these actions. However, in order to make the STP process successful, the entire school community – including administration, staff, students, and parents – must collaborate and coordinate their efforts in order to make school travel at École Boundary Elementary safe, active, and enjoyable for all.
