Page 2850 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 11 October 2022
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Schools—traffic management
MR MILLIGAN: My question is to the Minister for City Services. It is known that school drop-offs and pick-ups are significant contributors to peak hour traffic congestion, where there is a lack of parking for parents to wait for their children.
A specific example is the high school in Kaleen. Parents are left to park along the busy Baldwin Drive, creating hazards for commuters, staff and students. This has been an ongoing issue for many years. The lack of parking contributes to more road congestion, but it also contributes to safety concerns for children coming and going from school premises.
Minister, what is the government doing to accommodate the growing parking needs of local schools?
MR STEEL: We addressed this in estimates, so I am happy to go over again what we do in relation to working closely with schools through the School Safety Program, where we listen to feedback from those school communities about issues they are experiencing with pick-up and drop-off-time congestion that may be occurring around school, and also promote healthy modes of travel to and from school as well. Over time, we have seen, unfortunately, a reduction in the number of students who walk to and from school. That is something we have been trying to address through the programs we support with the School Safety Program.
Traffic management is also a part of how we work with the schools, and, indeed, there are a number of pedestrian traffic investigations that are underway near schools that are occurring right now. There is currently an assessment of active travel connections that are leading to Lyneham Primary School to promote that form of travel. We are also looking at active travel connections leading to Maribyrnong Primary School.
There are safe system assessments that are happening around a number of schools as well, particularly around Pearce at Hodgson Crescent, and we are also looking at how we can improve pedestrian safety at Margaret Hendry School, the Bonner school and Dunlop school as well. We will continue to work with them.
I have heard that Kaleen is a particular issue. I am happy to put the School Safety Program in touch with the schools in Kaleen to look at how we can improve traffic safety and management around those schools and at how we can improve active travel as an option for those students who live within walking distance.
MR MILLIGAN: Minister, what is the government doing with the feedback you have received from parents with concerns at the lack of parking spaces at these schools?
MR STEEL: There are a range of measures that are employed, and it will depend on the circumstances. We often have consultants engaged—experts—to look at how traffic management can be improved. There are a range of different things that they may employ, depending on the school environment and how to improve safety there. That can be employing the use of Kiss and Ride locations; it could include,
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