A key aspect of Vision Zero is making sure kids have safe and accessible active transportation options to and from their school. With Vision Zero Ottawa and Show Us Your School Street, I’d like to share my analysis of potential improvements to the road and parking lot design around a nearby community school. Let’s take a closer look at École des Voyageurs here in Convent Glen.
When you look at des Voyageurs from above from the perspective of safe streets, you see a classic suburban challenge. The school sits at a transition point where several neighborhood paths converge. However, the street layout—several local streets leading to larger collectors—funnels a significant amount of vehicle traffic onto Voyageur Drive right outside the school’s front door.
The Issues
The main issue around this school is that the surrounding neighbourhood was built with two things in mind: moving car traffic as quickly as possible, and lots of green space and pathways. Unfortunately, those considerations were made in that order, and so even the school parking lot and the crossing where the multi-use path meets the road isn’t even marked.
The sidewalks crossing in front of the school are also broken by a wide parking lot entrance, and the main multi-use path is broken up in two spots by the parking lot. The bike lanes in front of the school are also just lines of paint, which is far from ideal for kids to confidently get to school by bike.
The school has implemented a “kiss and ride” drop-off in the morning, and asks parents not to drop their kids off by car if possible. However, most parents who need to drive just stop a couple hundred feet from the school and drop their kids off there. Plus, more and more parents are just going into the parking lot in the morning anyhow even though they’re not supposed to.
Potential Fixes
From the air, the solutions become clear.
The first thing I would do is put in a whole whack of raised, continuous sidewalks and paths. It may also make sense to put in curb extensions (or “bumpouts”) to shorten the crossing distance at Voyageur and the path entrances.
All the places kids end up crossing Voyageur Drive could be raised crosswalks, and so could the sidewalk entrances into and inside the parking lot (see the map).
We could also look at a “School Street” pilot before and after school—temporarily closing the immediate block to through-traffic for 15 minutes during drop-off and pickup—to prioritize the hundreds of kids arriving or leaving on foot over the several dozen cars trying to navigate the bottleneck. This kind of program makes the area in front of the school a joyful and comfortable place for students to arrive, as compared to a dangerous and stressful one.
Join the Audit – Show Us Your School Street
This isn’t just about one school in Orléans. This is about every school in Ottawa.
I’m challenging you to take some time this year to look at your neighborhood school on a map. What do you see from above that you might have missed from the driver’s seat? What changes would make you feel safer letting your child walk or bike to school.
Once you’ve identified a gap or a dangerous conflict point, don’t keep it to yourself. Share it with your school council, your neighbors, or groups like Vision Zero Ottawa. If you share with The New Orleans (mail [at] theneworleans [dot] ca) I would be happy to publish your analysis here. Safe school streets shouldn’t be a luxury or a special “pilot project” we have to beg for—they should be the default setting for every child in our city.
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