The car could soon disappear from the surroundings of several schools in Poitiers. The town hall presented, Monday, May 16, its plan “Rue des Écoles”, which provides for the development of the streets of eleven Poitevin schools. From the start of the school year in September 2022, traffic will be very reduced around these schools, ranging from simple floor marking update for the Petit-tour kindergarten until the street is closed during student entry and exit times. For now, this will be the case for five of these schoolswhose names have not yet been revealed.
The objective is twofold: to enable children to come to school on foot in complete safety and to improve the quality of the air around schools. A experimentation has already started since last fall around the Jacques-Brel school. Rue du Commerce is now closed to traffic from 8:25 a.m. to 8:55 a.m. in the morning and from 3:50 p.m. to 4:10 p.m. in the afternoon. The consultations for the new schools chosen will begin in the next few days. “Depending on the schools, the solutions are different”, explains Hélène Paumier, the deputy mayor in charge of education.
It puts our children in even more danger because we can’t come with them. – Marie, a mother of a student in CE2
“Either we will have a drop-off and the child will have time, calmly, to go down to see the parent, or he will come on foot with his parents or friends”she explains. “It will always be possible to take your child and park as close as possible to the school thanks to the drop-off points.” But for Hélène Paumier, it is necessary “be aware that if everyone does this, it creates danger around the school. So yes, for example, you will have to get up earlier, but as the city of Poitiers is divided into sectors, we rarely live further than 10-15 minutes walk from his school.”
Parents of students divided
This is the case of this father met in front of the Paul-Bert school in Poitiers. Every morning, he comes on foot with his son Balthazar, in CP class. And he is happy with this “Rue des Écoles” project. “I find it great that around schools, there are no passing cars”he says. “Here, between the school exit and the road, there is only two meters of sidewalk. So we inevitably see people on the road, including children.”
Other parents, who live further away, are headwind against the project. “We weren’t explained to us and we weren’t found solutions, that’s what worries us”, denounces Mary. Her son is in a dance and singing class. They both live in the Saint-Éloi district, seven kilometers away.“It puts our children even more at risk because we can’t come with them,” she denounces. “There are no parking spaces around this street. So if we can no longer approach the gate, we have to drop them off, and therefore let them go down on their own to the school. .”
All the schools concerned in the long term
On the other hand, Paul-Bert’s teachers are waiting for these new arrangements with impatience. Many are fed up with the wild parking of some parents of students. The town hall ensures that for the moment, only the most minor axes will be redeveloped to avoid congestion in the surrounding area. Eventually, all of the forty schools will undergo the same changes.
The first eleven schools affected by the “Rue des Écoles” plan:
- Condorcet
- Paul Bert
- Coligny
- Mermoz
- Montmidi
- Micromegas
- Saint-Exupery
- Horn
- Paris Gate
- The Minims
- small tour