For the past year, The Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT) has been working with Green Communities Canada (GCC) to spread awareness of the findings of the report “Investigation of Supportive Policy for Active School Travel: Evidence-based recommendations for policies to promote active transportation for school journeys.” Published in 2021, the report was produced by the Human Environments Analysis Lab (HEAL) at Western University with support from the Ontario Active School Travel (OAST) Council.
The report contains a total of 57 policy recommendations, based on a multi-method research strategy, which included a comprehensive literature review of 185 academic journal articles, environmental policy scans of 24 regions in Ontario, and 555 key informant surveys and interviews.
Inspired by the findings in this report, TCAT worked with GCC to create an accessible public webinar series and open-source advocacy assets to help disseminate the insights from the policy research and raise awareness of the policy recommendations within HEAL’s report. The topics of these webinars and advocacy assets were identified by the OAST Council, and the council members shared the most common pain points that school boards and school communities face and provided critical recommendations to advance active school travel.
We are thrilled to announce that these advocacy assets are now live and are now available for public use!
Advocacy Assets
TCAT, GCC and the OAST Council identified high-quality school bike parking, good winter maintenance, and traffic calming measures as three critical ways to advance active school travel. At the same time, we heard time and time again that school boards and school community members often feel overwhelmed when it comes to advocating for these measures and figuring out ways to demand better action from their towns or municipalities.
These advocacy assets are designed to distill complex information into clear, digestible, and actionable snippets. For each of the three topics, we explore the “Why, What, and How?” — Why is this an important intervention for encouraging active school travel? What does it look like in practice? How can I help?
Each asset was designed to function as a stand-alone post on social media or as one slide in a larger series. These assets are open for public use and are meant to support individuals with information and tools to help them advocate for active school travel. We hope that these assets are helpful to you, and we hope that you share them widely!
All of the assets can be accessed and downloaded here.
By Jennie Geleff, TCAT Project Manager