The objective of a Road Safety Audit (RSA) is to ensure that the project operates as safely as possible, taking the safety of all users, particuarly vulnerable ones, into consideration: pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, children, the elderly and people those with visual or physical disabilities. The School Route is an initiative that aims to promote and make it easier for children to walk to school in safety, independently, i.e. without being accompanied by an adult. It has been implemented in several European cities and towns, the aim being to adapt a network of urban itineraries that converge in the school so as to guarantee the utmost safety and comfort for pedestrians and particularly for school children. The School Route has been generated through a process of citizens' participation which includes the school children, schools and their teaching staff, families, the public administrations with the relevant powers, the establishments and the associations in the area and a team of technical consultants, who, by means of an RSA, identify the most convenient routes, the barriers encountered in these routes, problems for crossing at junctions or intersections, speeding by vehicles, commercial establishments that could support the project, etc. This information makes it possible to improve design by using, for example, traffic calming measures. The main objective of the implementation of the School Route is the accomplishment of a sustainable mobility model, as well as greater safety in the streets of our neighbourhoods and cities. Similarly, the aim is to retrieve, by means of an intervention in the public space, the civic nature of the street, not only as a thoroughfare, but also as a meeting and recreational space. The RSA is a tool that makes it possible to systematise the process that allows us to make routes to school safe and suitable places for children to begin to discover their city and increase their sense of belonging. The article provides different examples from the district of Poblenou in the city of Barcelona, on how to use the RSA tool to evaluate the connectivity and convenience of the facilities for children who go to school or towards collective transport points. The three key findings of the work are: a) the School Route is designed taking children's special characteristics into account (they do not recognise danger, they are impulsive, they are not seen by motorists, etc.), although the final design benefits all the citizens; b) the School Route should not be seen as an isolated action, but rather as the beginning of a path that should lead to an improvement in the accessibility conditions of the whole neighbourhood; c) RSAs are a tool which, on the one hand, systematise the process of implementation of the School Route, and on the other allow municipal authorities to monitor routes to school and thus detect the main problems that children encounter when going to school by themselves and for them to be able to do so in optimal safety conditions. (Author/publisher)
Abstract