The City of Longueuil is taking drastic measures to secure the areas around its elementary schools, where car traffic increases when students arrive and leave. An ambitious plan includes a series of measures to calm motorized traffic and promote access on foot or by bike to the 56 elementary schools in the territory, it has been learned The Duty.
Determined to put an end to the chaos in front of schools, Mayor Catherine Fournier has given the green light to two pilot projects for “school streets” where access to cars will be prohibited during morning and evening rush hours. The Hubert-Perron school in the Vieux-Longueuil borough and the Monseigneur-Forget school in Saint-Hubert have volunteered to test this concept, which has proven successful in several cities, including Montreal and Quebec City.
As soon as school starts on Tuesday morning, car traffic will be banned in front of these two Longueuil elementary schools. This project aims to avoid the confusion that threatens student safety when all parents arrive at the same time by car to drive their child to school. Some park in double rows. Children cross the street between two cars.
Parents will have to drop off their children a few dozen meters further, in the surrounding streets. Car traffic will be better distributed, which will avoid concentrating cars – and the risk of accidents – in front of the school entrances.
“We feel a strong desire among citizens to make the streets safer, especially around schools. When we go door-to-door, this is the question that comes up most often,” says Catherine Fournier.
A global vision
“School streets” are just one of the measures aimed at strengthening security around elementary schools. The mayor of Longueuil is expected to announce a major plan Tuesday morning aimed at making travel safer for students.
A series of strategies will be implemented to calm traffic near schools and encourage travel on foot or by bike: curb extensions at street corners, speed bumps (such as speed bumps), photo radars, road markings, pedestrian crossings equipped with flashing lights, addition of cycle paths separated from the roadway and bicycle racks, etc.
The city plans to systematically analyze student movements around the 56 primary schools in its territory and implement corrective measures based on a series of criteria. This approach aims to correct “inequities” between sectors of the city, explains Catherine Fournier.
When the mayor and her team came to power in 2021, there was no comprehensive vision for school zone safety. The city was increasing security near schools where parents were complaining.
“The problem is that the people who make requests to the City are often in the most advantaged neighborhoods. Scientific literature shows that citizens in the least advantaged neighborhoods are less likely to contact the City,” says Catherine Fournier.
Getting young people moving
The Longueuil administration has mandated Vélo-Québec to support it in its efforts to secure school zones. The organization recommended establishing a priority list based on a series of criteria: the number of students not entitled to yellow bus transportation for each school (because they live less than 1.6 kilometres from the school), the low-income index of families by school zone and the socioeconomic background index, which takes into account the mother’s education.
In Quebec, the vast majority of elementary school students (80%) live within walking or cycling distance of their school, but barely a third of them walk to class, according to the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ). In most cases, mom or dad take their children to school by car.
However, Public Health recommends that young people do at least 60 minutes of physical activity per day — a target that is far from being reached. Active travel is a simple and effective way to encourage young people to move.
“In recent decades, the fluidity of automobiles has been prioritized to the detriment of the safety and fluidity of other modes when carrying out development projects,” laments Vélo-Québec in its proposals to the City of Longueuil.
The organization recommends “reducing the size, or even completely removing, drop-off areas for parents who drive” in front of elementary schools, to encourage modal shift to walking or cycling. The City plans to secure travel around ten schools for the next three years (at a cost of $1.3 million per year) and to increase the pace thereafter.