Smart Commute
Active and Sustainable School Travel
Contact Us
For more information contact:
Callaway Johnson
Program Coordinator - Schools & Community
Email: [email protected]
Active & Sustainable School Travel
School Site Design Guidelines
The design guidelines are intended to help stakeholders develop school communities that foster active travel and sustainable travel by helping various stakeholders find common ground and clarify a common language to create partnerships and advance recommendations.
Active and Sustainable School Travel (ASST) emphasizes the importance of active transportation (e.g., walking, wheeling, and rolling) and public transportation.
The more students using ASST means less cars on the road, less pollution, improved safety, and increased physical activity.
Transportation’s Sustainable Mobility and Public Health’s Chronic Disease Prevention work to engage the community and schools in active and sustainable school travel initiatives.
The goal of the ASST program is to facilitate a measurable shift in travel behaviour towards active and sustainable travel through:
- Policy change
- Infrastructure improvements
- Capacity building
- Education and awareness
- School travel planning
- Fund school bike racks
Active and Sustainable School Travel Certification
The ASST certification process uses the Canadian School Travel Planning model to help schools earn recognition for ASST efforts.
School Travel Planning is a community-based approach that aims to increase the number of students and adults choosing active and sustainable travel to get to and from school. This approach addresses concerns about safety, physical activity, and the environment.
Key community stakeholders (school boards, municipalities, police, public health professionals, parents/guardians, administrators, educators, community agencies and children) work together to identify and solve their school travel needs.
Create a School Travel Plan
Through a five-step process, each school writes a School Travel Plan with input and assistance from community stakeholders. Each School Travel Plan (STP) includes an action plan describing steps they plan to implement such as:
- School infrastructure improvements e.g. Bike racks and shelters
- Education e.g. Safety training for walking and cycling, awareness raising
- Community mobilization e.g. Walking school buses, walking buddies, ride sharing
- Encouragement e.g. Celebrations of physical activity and environment, event days, recognition and rewards for walking/biking
- Engineering improvements at or near school sites e.g. pedestrian crossings, adult crossing guards, repairs/upgrades to sidewalks, signage
Steps to creating an Active and Sustainable School Travel plan
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Setup - Identify school champion and confirm school participation
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Assess Conditions - Complete school travel profile, walkabout, surveys, traffic counts
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Action Planning - Create school travel plan
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Implementation - Education, encouragement, enforcement, engineering, evaluation
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Ongoing Monitoring and Improvement
Schools are encouraged to apply for ASST Certification. There are two levels of certification:
- Level 1: Steps one through three completed
- Level 2: Steps four and five completed. Recipients are designated as bronze, silver, or gold in relation to the number and intensity of actions completed.
Would your school like to…
- Make it easier to walk or wheel to and from school?
- Reduce the number of vehicles around your school at drop-off and pick-up times?
- Increase the number of physically active students, families, and staff?
- Improve air quality and safety?
If yes, then you may find this Toolkit useful.
Objectives of the toolkit are to increase:
- Parental/caregivers’ awareness about the importance of ASST.
- Number of parents/caregivers engaged in ASST initiatives, including encouraging their child’s active travel.
- Parental/caregiver capacity to become ASST leaders/champions.
Cycling is a viable mode of transport for students and staff at Hamilton schools. Safe and secure bicycle storage encourages more people to cycle to and from school.
Schools that sign up for a School Travel Plan can apply for the School Bike Rack Grant.
This is a one-time grant of up to $600 for the bike rack. Funding is limited.
How to Apply
To apply for the grant, schools must:
- Have or be creating an ongoing School Travel Plan.
- Meet with Smart Commute Hamilton to complete a site analysis, including the appropriate location and number of bike racks to be installed. Bike rack installed must be a multi-ring bike rack.
- Acknowledges that the City of Hamilton accepts no liability for the construction, installation, operation, destruction, or theft of the bike rack. School/school boards will be responsible for future maintenance costs.
- Acknowledges Smart Commute Hamilton and Metrolinx as financial contributors in printed materials, including small decals (provided by the city) to be placed on the bike racks. Logo and artwork available on request.
- Submit an invoice for grant money to the City of Hamilton after bike racks have been purchased and installed on school property.
Complete a Bike Rack Funding Opportunity for Schools Application Form
Date modified
July 20, 2023