Waching daily Jul 2 2018

The Way2Go program is incredibly important

for the wellbeing of our communities

and the wellbeing of our children.

One of the things the Way2Go program is renowned for

is operating on a really solid database

so we look at a lot of information in how to create

interventions for safer, greener, more active travel.

We know now that most children would prefer to be

walking riding, skating, scooting to school

because it's fun and because they like being active

and they like the social interaction with friends.

We also know, contrary to popular myth,

that most parents would rather their children were being active as well

but they have legitimate concerns and fears

about the safety of that happening

so if we can create safer environments around schools

we make it safer for children, safer for the entire community

and that leads to those benefits

from being healthy, active, reducing obesity

learning independence and importantly

reducing congestion and making the roads safer

And the essence of Way2Go is in the partnership

and collaboration between all of the parties involved

that's the schools, local Government

and the state Government itself.

We work with the whole range of schools

independent schools, state schools and Catholic schools right across the state

one of the popular components of Way2Go is Way2Go BikeEd

and that's a practical program

schools book into that each year

up to 120 students per cohort

students have to be between 9-13 years old up to 120 students per cohort

students have to be between 9-13 years old

so they're usually year fives

they start off practicing their riding skills

in the school ground and then they graduate

to actually safe riding on the roads

and the instructors have already planned the routes

on the most appropriate roads to ride on

when schools have done BikeEd

and they've got a lot of kids riding their bikes when schools have done BikeEd

and they've got a lot of kids riding their bikes

but they don't have sufficient shelter

We facilitate some funding so that they can support that.

We know through our work in the program that

a large proportion of Primary aged children live

within a few kilometres of their school

and our approach is to partner with Councils in South Australia

to try and improve these local school precincts

to make it safer for kids to walk and cycle

One part of what we offer is

funding to contribute to local Government

to complete small scale infrastructure projects funding to contribute to local Government

to complete small scale infrastructure projects

things such as

it can be a formal school crossing

but also such things as narrowing the road

or improving the footpath

and cycling or walking access to the school

and we try to value-add on what council is already doing

as part of their role

so we work with local Government traffic engineers

and review the end of school days

and then we liaise with the school leadership

and school community to find ways to improve that safety and access.

at the moment the program has 40-plus

local Government partners onboard

and every year new Councils join the program

The feedback we've had from Councils

that have participated in the program is that

they get a lot of value out of it

and they're really happy with an evidence based approach

which allows them to work out where

they can best help their local school which allows them to work out where

they can best help their local school