Smart Commute

Active School Travel

Contact Us

For more information contact:
Callaway Johnson
Program Coordinator - Schools & Community
Email: [email protected]

Active School Travel (AST) emphasizes the importance of walking, cycling, and public transit.

The more students using ASST means less cars on the road, less pollution, improved safety, and increased physical activity.

Smart Commute Hamilton and the Hamilton AST Hub work to engage the community and schools in active and sustainable school travel initiatives.

The goal is to facilitate a measurable shift in travel behaviour towards active and sustainable travel through:

Policy change
Infrastructure improvements
Capacity building
Education and awareness
Get a School Travel Plan
Request a bike rack for your school

ASST Charter

School Travel Plan

School Bike Rack Grant

Hamilton Active & Sustainable School Transportation (ASST) Charter

This charter serves to inform a long-term commitment to providing support, resources and training towards active and sustainable school transportation. We will work together to encourage safe, healthy and sustainable routes to school through our commitment to these ASST principles:

Street design for comfort, convenience and safety for all users.
Supportive land use and site planning.
Personal and community safety.
Partnership, collaboration and shared responsibility.
A culture of active and sustainable transportation.

The City of Hamilton, Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, and Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic School Board are committed to AST as shown in the charters:

Active and Sustainable School Travel Certification

The Active and Sustainable School Travel (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 and children) work together to identify and to 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

Download the School Travel Plan How-to-Toolkit(PDF, 646.94 KB)

School Travel Plan Sign Up

Apply for Certification

Setup - Identify school champion and confirm school participation
Assess Conditions - Complete school travel profile, walkabout, surveys, traffic counts
Action Planning - Create school travel plan
Implementation - Education, encouragement, enforcement, engineering, evaluation
Ongoing Monitoring and Improvement

Outline Graphic for applying for certification

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 need to get involved with Active & Sustainable School Travel (ASST) - Parent Engagement Strategy.

For more information, contact [email protected].

Objectives of the strategy 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.

Strategy documents:

Parent Engagement Strategy(PDF, 289.74 KB)
- Action Toolkit(PDF, 651.94 KB)
- Toolkit Resources(PDF, 1.16 MB)

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 have the opportunity to 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

September 23, 2022