For two days, cars did not even pass by the doors of four schools in the parish of Lumiar, in Lisbon. The streets were closed to traffic and the school community took over the public space.
A car use to take children to school accounts for about 20% of traffic in Lisbon, second points out the former mobility councilman, Fernando Nunes da Silva, who worked on this matter. At school entry and exit times, the school streets become a veritable chaos, with sometimes endless lines of cars, whose drivers try to stop wherever they can to drop off or pick up their children just outside the school gates. The scenario is practically the same all over the city. It is also at the door of the Professor Lindley Cintra school grouping, in Lumiar.
But on March 31 and April 18 it was different. Four schools from the aforementioned grouping, which are located in close proximity to each other, had the surrounding areas closed to road traffic as part of an experiment called Active School Street. This initiative was promoted by Lisboa E-Nova, Lisbon's energy and environment agency, together with the City Council and the Lumiar Parish Council, with the objective of giving the streets back to the children and young people. Throughout the day, the noise of cars that would normally pass in front of these schools was replaced by the sound of conversations, games, music, and a variety of other activities that took place in the street. And the song of the little birds echoed in the air. Those who wished to take or pick up their children by car would have to stop away from the school gates.
A comprehensive program of activities was developed with the objective of promoting appropriation of public space not only by the school community, but also by residents of the neighborhood and the city in general. There were short bike lessons for the younger ones and opportunities for them to try their hand at rollerblading or skateboarding down the street; live music sessions; cushions and blankets laid out inviting them to enjoy quiet moments of reading; spontaneous ball games; demonstrations of science experiments; traditional games and much more. The diversity of activities provided everyone with a wide range of options to get involved and enjoy the street.
A Active School Street é an idea that can be replicated by any school and that serves to raise awareness about the opportunities that giving back to the school street brings to peopleThis initiative aims to stimulate active citizenship and promote mobility by foot, bicycle, and public transport as an alternative to the car. The initiative Active School Street covered the following schools: Lumiar Kindergarten, EB1 Quinta dos Frades, EB2,3 Lindley Cintra e Lumiar Secondary School. Partners such as the City Council, EMEL, and EPAL also participated with activities aimed at the little ones.
Filipa Sacadura, from Lisboa E-Nova, explained us "the Active School Street was conceived by Lisboa E-Nova as part of an application to the Environmental Fund. Although it was approved, there was no longer a budget allocation in the Fund for us to have funding. But we thought it made sense to move this forward".. With less budget than they would have if they had won from the Environmental Fund, Lisboa E-Nova prepared two editions of Active School Street with the support of the Lumiar Council and the Lindley Cintra Grouping, "who were already partners in this candidacy of ours". “We contacted them again and asked if they still wanted to go ahead with the initiative. They said yes. They were fantastic enthusiasts from the beginning." Lisboa E-Nova's role was to be "a kind of check-list: to see all the activities that we wanted to concentrate here, all the entities that were necessary to have as partners and also in terms of logistics what was needed, from having the Municipal Police here, the bays and cones to close the traffic, all that".
"The idea was to close streets, to give a different experience than normal, to allow kids to experience what the street is through activities. In the morning we are going to have activities that are mostly driven by the schools themselves, by teachers and students of various ages. And in the afternoon, we have several partners who also come here to play street games, such as EPAL, EMEL, and some departments of the City Hall".says Filipa. "We want this Active School Street initiative to have some visibility, that other Parish Councils would take notice and want to repeat it. With us, Lisboa E-Nova, or not."
On the 18th, while the Active School StreetMunicipal technicians, city specialists, and members of associations and groups learned, not far from those four schools, good practices in traffic calming, creating active communities, and implementing structured and safe school routes. The "class" was sponsored by Dutch Cycling Embassya Dutch consulting company dedicated to promoting sustainable mobility by bicycle, together with two other Dutch entities that play a similar role: the CROW and the Mobycon. The meeting also served as a moment of dialogue and exchange of ideas among the participants.
After a theoretical component during the morning, the workshop had a practical moment in the afternoon: three visits to three school environments in the Telheiras neighborhood - EB2,3 Telheiras was one of these schools. In these visits, the participants were challenged to see the street at the height of the children and to point out, on a sheet of paper, improvements that they would make to the surroundings. Then, together, they discussed the solutions for each school.
Also in the scope of Active School Street were tested two prototype Bicycle Trains. Two lines of children from EB1 Quinta dos Frades to school at two different times - one arriving at eight and another at nine - to test the inclusion or not of this school in the municipal Comboios program. These Trains were a success and are now run twice a week, on a route between Ameixoeira and the school, with about two dozen children. Chris Bruntlett, representative of the Dutch Cycling Embassy, participated in one of these experimental Trains and also experienced the streets closed to traffic.
For two days, the initiative Active School Street showed, in Lumiar, that school surroundings can be more than just streets for passing by and dropping off children at school gates. They can be spaces for meetings and activities; they can even serve as a way for the school to open itself up to the city and show what is done indoors. Cities abroad have been launching projects to protect and calm the streets and squares in front of schools; in Lisbon, it was approved in the Municipal Assembly a recommendation along the same linesbut from the municipal side few have been the initiatives. Actions such as Active School Street can be replicated, even temporarily, in other schools in the city and metropolitan area to make us all reflect on public space and its relationship with children.
Scroll here for the complete gallery of a morning and afternoon of Active School Street:
