Daniel Zeichner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Zeichner on 2016-02-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effect of the walk to school programme on the Government’s objective to increase the proportion of children aged five to 10 that usually walk to school from 46 per cent in 2013 to 55 per cent in 2025.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The Walk to school programme funded by the Local Sustainable Transport Fund achieved significant modal shift: in primary schools the number of pupils walking all or part of the way to school increased by 23% and the number being driven all the way decreased by 30%. In secondary schools the number of pupils walking increased by 12%.

Modal shift data collected from the programme, alongside various other actual and estimated figures, indicated that the project produced over 20 million new walking journeys, and took over 18.5 million car miles off the road network.