One school in Olivais and two in Lumiar will receive the pilot project of school transport operated by Carris as of October. On the other hand, the Bicycle Trains do not have a defined return yet.
It is at the beginning of the school year that many mothers and fathers establish the routines that will last for months to come. But when it comes to school mobility, the back-to-school period is off to a shaky start. The pilot project for a new school transport service, to be operated by Carris, will only start up in October in three schools in the city - one in Olivais and two in Lumiar. As for the Bicycle Trains, there is still no information about their return. As for school transport Alfacinhas is suspended.
The new school transport service is the result of a proposal presented by the PCP councilmen at Lisbon City Hall in February and which was approved unanimously. The proposal foresaw a pilot in at least two city clusters in September. "There is a slight delay"said communist councilman João Ferreira to journalists, at the end of Wednesday's private town hall meeting, "but we have indication that it will start in October and in three schools in the city". These schools are EB 1 Paulinho Montez, in Olivais, EB 2,3 Telheiras, in Lumiar, and EB 2,3 Prof. Lindley Cintra, also in Lumiar.
For João Ferreira, who shares the council of the PCP in CML with Ana Jara, this is "a first step toward the citywide generalization of a dedicated school transportation service" which leads to "many families give up individual transportation, which today has a great weight in this type of home-school and school-home commuting". What will start is a pilot project, "which will then have to be evaluated and may or may not admit changes in a wider implementation phase for the city as a whole"added João Ferreira. "We hope that information will be given to the families and educational communities of these schools right away."
Note that in April the Livre party presented to the Lisbon City Council a proposal also for school transportation, entitled The Little Yellow Onesin the wake of a promise made in the joint electoral program of the Livre and PS parties (coalition More Lisbon). The Livre initiative, similar in its basic idea to the PCP one, was also unanimously approved in a City Council meeting. The party proposed a school transportation system in Lisbon, something almost non-existent in the city, and mandated the Mayor to create an ecological concept of free electric vans and minibuses that would allow children to be transported safely from their homes to daycare centers and schools.
This new point-to-point collection system would not be limited to children and youth, and would be unfolded, at other times, for senior citizens or those with reduced mobility. Livre also challenged the academic and development community to software for the creation of a transport-on-demand platform that could be associated with'.The Little Yellow Ones.
Lumiar is the parish where most people go to school by car
Survey Data Hands Up! 2021, the most complete radiograph of how children and young people go to school in Lisbon, show that 48.2% of the students go by car, 25.8% on foot, and 14.% by bus. Focusing on the two parishes of the future pilot project, it can be seen that going to school by car occupies a substantial slice of the modal split: 67.6% in Lumiar, where only 14.1% of the children and young people answered that they walk and 8.4% by bus; 53.4% in Olivais, where, nevertheless, 26.9% walk and 14.1% by bus. Lumiar is, in fact, the parish with the highest number of school trips by car, followed by Parque das Nações with 62.4% of school modal share for this means of individual transport and São Domingos de Benfica with 61.2%. The report can be downloaded here.
In the session presenting the results of the Hands Up! 2021, that took place in MayÂngelo Pereira (PSD), the Councilman in charge of Mobility, showed his commitment to a paradigm shift. The responsible said, at the time, that he had "the certainty that the results of this year 2022 will be quite different. I think it will manage to decrease the use of the car, even because of the measures we are implementing."moving forward three main priorities: the free transportation for students up to 23/24 years oldthe new school transport service from Carris and the Bicycle Trains.
Undated Bicycle Trains
In the 2021/22 school year, the Bicycle Train project starts later due to procedural and budgetary issues, partly because there was an election period and new people occupying the city government. The project only resumed at the end of March, but, despite the late return, it was during this school year that it grew and consolidated with Trains at 15 schools and the surpassing of the mark of one thousand accumulated trips.
The Bicycle Trains are a program of the Lisbon City Hall to promote the use of the bicycle as a means of transportation to school and also to stimulate the future autonomy of the new generations in the city. A Bike Train consists of a line of children pedaling to school, accompanied by monitors; schools or parents themselves may ask for a Bike Train to exist in a specific school grouping. In some cases, the Trains even come about through the initiative of a group of volunteer mothers and fathers. O project has been operationalized in the field by the Bicicultura cooperativeThe overall coordination is the responsibility of the municipality.
Given the success and the political commitment, the return of the Bicycle Trains seemed certain at the very beginning of the new school year, but this did not happen and there is still no information as to how and when the Trains will return, but this return is still being prepared. However, this Wednesday's City Council meeting passed a proposal to formalize financial support shared between Bicicultura and the association Cicloda for the operationalization of another project, the Pedaling Schools in the parishes of Benfica and São Domingos de Benfica.
O Pedaling Schools is the result of an idea presented and voted for in the Participatory Budget of 2021 and that in its essence is the same as that of the Bicycle Trains - that is, the Trains will arrive this year in Benfica and São Domingos de Benfica with a different name. The schools covered will be EB 2,3 Professor Delfim Santos, Externato Fernão Mendes Pinto, Benfica Teaching Cooperative, and EB 1,2,3 Pedro de Santarém. The initiative, which was initially planned for last school year, also covers "training actions for bicycle use indoors and in the city, safe parking, and training to solve mechanical issues" e "school community awareness actions for the adoption of safe behaviors in car parking and circulation in the school surroundings".
However, the consideration and voting on the two proposals concerning the Pedaling SchoolsThe measures, which consolidated the transfer of funds to Bicicultura and Cicloda, have been postponedIt also puts a question mark over when this project will be able to get off the ground this school year.
Hanging Alfacinhas
The 2022/23 school year is also starting without the city's oldest school transportation service, the Alfacinhas. The complaint was made by the PS Town Council through social networks. "The school year began with hundreds of children prevented from using the school transport service, the Alfacinhas. It is the first time since 2009 that the service is not working, harming hundreds of children of the 1st cycle, prevented from using a safe and proximity service", wrote the socialists.
O Alfacinhas is a free school transport service for 1st cycle students who live more than 12 minutes' walk from the school where they are enrolled, provided that they are within the area of influence of the respective school grouping. The stops are defined according to the residence of each child and the service is available in the morning, to school, and in the late afternoon, to home. In the last school year (2021/22), it covered five school groupings.
The operation of the Alfacinhas was assigned to a private company, through a public tender. Since 2016, it was Barraqueiro performing the service for periods of three school years. The last contract, in the amount of 2.6 million euros, dated 2019 and ended last school year. The contract signed in 2016 had been cheaper, 2.2 million. The PS accuses Carlos Moedas' executive of "incompetence" because "ignored the reality of the economic agents, maintaining the tender prices when costs skyrocketed. No company was interested, of course, and hundreds of children are without transportation."say the CML socialists.
It is not known whether the municipality intends to municipalize the AlfacinhasIn the future, it will be integrated into Carris' new school transport service, which for now is a pilot project.
Lisboa Para Pessoas sent several clarification questions to the Lisbon City Council, and in particular to Councilman Ângelo Pereira's office, but there has so far been no availability for a response. This article will be updated if those answers come in.
Updated 9/19/2022: After the news from Lisboa Para Pessoas on Friday, CML quietly announced that the registrations for the Bike Trains open this week, on September 22nd. The municipality did not, however, respond to our questions.
