Policy and Places for Walking & Wheeling
Active & Safe Routes to School (ASRTS) recommends policies and planning supportive of active transportation on local and provincial levels. It also advocates for more walking & wheeling infrastructure in our communities.
A core issue is that of school siting - where we locate our schools. ASRTS developed a Discussion Brief: Reducing Childhood Obesity by Increasing Opportunities for Active Transportation to stimulate discussion regarding the need to ensure that provincial school siting decisions support efforts to reduce childhood obesity by increasing opportunities for active transportation to and from school. Please refer to our briefing note, which puts the Discussion Brief into context.
Other key policy documents include:
- Child-and Youth- Friendly Land Use and Transport Planning Guidelines
- Risk Management and Active School Travel
Success: Speed Reduction in School Zones in Nova Scotia
Active & Safe Routes to School was successful in building support to reduce speeds in school zones to help make our streets safe. View our background document to learn more about what motivated ASRTS to ask the Province of Nova Scotia to change the Motor Vehicle Act to make this possible. It ultimately heard our voice and those of our supporters: on May 24, 2011 the NS Government announced plans to reduce speeds in school zones from 50 km/h to 30 km/h.
We thank the following organizations for expressing their support for reducing speeds in school zones:
- AcTrac (Active Transportation Coalition of Cape Breton County)
- Basinview Drive Community School Travel Planning Committee
- Cape Breton Regional Municipality
- Central Inverness Community Health Board
- Cobequid Community Health Board
- Dartmouth Community Health Board
- Heart and Stroke Foundation of Nova Scotia
- Hike Nova Scotia
- Injury Free Nova Scotia
- LeMarchant-St. Thomas Elementary Home and School Association
- Lunenburg County Community Health Board
- Nova Scotia Bikeways Coalition
- Nova Scotia Chiefs of Police Association
- Recreation Nova Scotia
- Safe Communities HRM
- Safe Kids Canada
- St. Stephen’s Elementary School Travel Planning Committee
- Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities
