Getting to school without getting in the car

Our Big Girl started full-time school this year (Pre-Primary). 

Best friends on the bus on the first day of school, back in February

The school is 1.6km from our house - exactly one mile. There is a very busy road to cross. However, we have committed to getting her there without getting in the car. 

Most days we take the bus. There is no 'school bus' (they are not common in Australian cities) but a public bus route picks up about a block away and drops off at the school gate.

Other days we walk, ride or scooter. We are more than halfway through the year, and we have driven less then ten times - almost all when the car was on its way somewhere else and included a school drop-off or pick-up in the same journey.

Initial Time: Walking with Eva takes about 20 minutes, plus about ten minutes for an adult to walk home again. The bus only takes five minutes of actual bus time, but by the time we walk to the stop and wait, it is a 15 minute journey all together to get to school (generally Tyson or I then walk rather than bus our way home again). After school, the bus includes a wait, and is almost always late on top of that, meaning getting home at least half an hour after school lets out, often longer. If both Eva and parent scooter or ride, its less than a ten minute trip each way, including time for tying up the bike. If Eva rides and her adult walks, its more like 15 minutes. 

Driving takes about 5 minutes, so all these options add time.

Initial Cost: Riding, walking and scootering are free (Eva's bike was a hand-me-down gift; her scooter we found on bulk rubbish and Tyson fixed it up). The bus costs 60c each way for Eva and between 60c or $2.25 for Tyson and I (depending on whether our concession is current, and whether we bus home again or walk back). If we caught the bus each way each day that could be between $12 and $28.50, but as we always mix it up with some walking/riding/scootering, and also share accompanying children on the bus with another family, in practice its more like $6 a week.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Over the course of a year, I estimate we are spending about $240 on bus fares getting to and from school. Best case scenario we add about 1 hour a week to our travel times; worst case (lots of slow walking or waiting for late buses) we add up to 5 hours. However, this time has its own value (see 'impact'), so is not 'wasted' time in the week.

Impact: 

If we drove to and from school every day, this would be approximately 32km of driving per week. Given the stop-start nature of the trip, including a set of traffic lights that often takes a couple of cycles to get through at peak hour, the car doesn't run as efficiently for this sort of trip as is it can at optimum. Driving every trip would use around 2.72L of fuel per week - approximately $3.80 worth, generating around 7.4kg of CO2. (By comparison, this tool suggests that taking the bus would add about 3kg of CO2 to our carbon footprint, but that's a very rough estimate with many variables). In a year, allowing for some carbon footprint when we take the bus, we are saving around 270kg of CO2 each year by not driving to school.

Studies have shown that the rates of Australian school children in suburban areas using 'active transportation' (ie human-powered) to get to school have declined by around 40% since the early 1970s. In 2003, around 65% of primary and 40% of secondary school students in a Sydney study were driven to and from school, up from approximately 21% and 10% in 1971. Walking and bus-riding both declined. (Cycling was such a small number it didn't figure in the statistics, possibly because the area studied was quite hilly, However, other studies show the number of children riding bikes at all, let alone to school, is declining). If we were to postulate that 50% of Australia's approximately 3.7 million school students are driven to school every day, and conservatively estimate round trips of 1km at each end of the day for these students, that adds up to 74 million kilometres each week being driven to get children to and from school. That's over 1.3 million kg (1,300 tonnes) of CO2 being pumped into our air every week just getting Australian kids to school (much more, actually, as this doesn't allow for longer distances travelled to country schools, but I accept that in regional areas there are fewer alternate options). Taking our car off the road is a small contribution to reducing that, but hopefully we can inspire a few others to join us too. 

Not driving also addresses general traffic congestion. Everyone knows how much easier it is to get around the city when its school holidays, because there are far fewer cars on the roads. When congestion in the school carpark was a problem earlier this year, the school staggered the times of classes ending their day but never once suggested that parents could consider not driving to address the carpark problem! We can do better than that, surely?

Its not just about getting our car off the road, though - its also about getting us active. I prefer to walk or ride rather than bus because the exercise at each end of the school day is good for both me and Eva. She is a pretty active, physical person - it helps her school day a lot if she has burned off a bit of steam before arriving in the morning; it helps our afternoon tempers a great deal if she has one mile of exercise to stretch herself out after being cooped up all day, especially when wet weather has kept them off the playground. Of course, exercise is good for our general health as well!

Although I err away from the bus when I can, Eva loves it, especially as her best friend is mostly on the bus too, and they sit with admirable self assurance amidst the teenagers from our local high school who also use that bus. The after-school time playing freely on the vacant lot beside the bus stop waiting for the always-late bus is a highlight of her day (less so of mine).

There is also much intangible value in teaching our children that they can be self-sufficient. They can transport themselves to school (with adult supervision at this age, but eventually alone or with friends). In a culture that breeds dependence and, in doing so, de-skills children, this is very important. We are also teaching by example that they don't need to have a car to get everywhere, which will hopefully shape their implicit sense of 'normal' into adulthood.

Links:


Key 2012 Heart Foundation report into 'Active Travel to School' in Australia, which everyone else quotes in their articles.

Environmental Benefits of Walking (Diabetes Australia)

2011 article at The Conversation about decline in Australian children riding to school, what is causing it, why its a bad thing and what can be done to reverse the pattern.

Bicycle Network's Ride2School program

Results hot off the press for the National Cycling Participation Survey 2015 (released last week)

Cycling tips for school drop-off

Australian Bureau of Statistics article (2013) on Australian car ownership trends and implications. Gosh I love the ABS. Such brilliant, ongoing data collection and analysis.

International Walk To School (yep, that's a thing)

Walking School Bus program in Victoria and more generally

Various SA Education Department fact sheets on safe travel to school, including everything from catching a train to knowing the road markings as a pedestrian.

Buying a more efficient car

The impending arrival of a second child meant we needed to look at purchasing a different car - primarily because the Subaru Imprezza sports wagon we have had cannot fit two child seats with a pram in the back. Other than buying something we could afford, our two biggest considerations were (1) ensuring the new vehicle allowed us to offer lifts to people and (2) fuel efficiency. The first criterion put us in the market for a people mover; the second launched us into the world of European-manufactured diesel cars.

We are now the proud owners of a 2008 Citroen C4 Picasso people mover.

 

Why a people mover? Already I have had several people respond to our choice with 'how many kids are you planning to have?!'  For us it is about ensuring our vehicle allows us to live in line with our values around hospitality and generosity. If our car is only sufficient to meet the needs of our immediate family members, it is too limited. We were already at capacity once a week in our smaller car, as we regularly give a lift as a family to another adult. We want this new car to get us through at least the primary school years, for which it will need to be able to cart our kids plus their friends plus assorted junk treasures, and in the more immediate future we want to be able to take more than two adults in the car while it has two child seats.

Temporarily we are a two-car family again, but we intend to sell the Subaru just as soon as we get our heads above the water of a newborn in the household. I can't at this stage see how we could manage with no car at all, so researching and purchasing the most efficient model we could was the next best thing for us in retaining our commitment to sustainable living.

Totally gratuitous brag photos of our new little man and his super-proud big sister

Initial Time: As you would expect when taking on an expensive purchase, we spent a considerable amount of time researching before making this decision. Once we had identified the type of vehicle we wanted, the challenge was to find one - no easy search, as few Citroen C4 Picassos are sold in Australia and even less seem to come onto the second-hand market. A brand new Picasso could of course have been ordered, but that was beyond our budget.

We were assisted by Allpike Citroen in Osborne Park, who eventually located our car through a dealer in Sydney and arranged its transport to and re-registration in WA. From standing in the Citroen yard discussing options to driving the car home took about two months. Our Picasso arrived four days before our baby, which was perhaps cutting things just a little fine...

Initial Cost: Our drive-away cost was $24,000. This included all the running around to find the car and get it to us.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Any car has ongoing costs! Modern diesel engines need servicing only about half as often as petrol engines and, we are led to believe, generally require less maintenance. We shall see. It is also possible that parts will be harder to obtain, and take longer to turn up, as there are not many Citroens on the road here. The cost of fuel, however, will be less (see below).

Trip computer showing distance travelled, fuel economy and average speed

Impact: Various car information sources suggest we have reduced our fuel consumption from around 10L/100km to something closer to 7.4L/100km (combined urban and open road economy).

In the 2011-12 financial year we filling our car with petrol 30 times. As we roughly fill it every 400km, I estimate we travelled about 12,000km in the year. Averaging 10L/100km, this means we burnt around 1200L of petrol in the year. Petrol produces 2.3kg of carbon dioxide for every litre used, resulting in the 2011-12 carbon dioxide contribution from our car being 2760kg.

Assuming our travel distance remains constant this year, our fuel use will be around 888L - a reduction of 420L. Diesel has a higher rate of CO2 emission than petrol, at 2.7kg/L, but we still come out well ahead as diesel engines are so much more efficient. Our 780L of diesel will produce around 2398kg of carbon dioxide - 362kg less.

In the 2011-12 financial year we spent $1847.64 on petrol for our previous car. Diesel is generally more expensive per litre than ordinary petrol, but on par with the high-octane petrol we tended to opt for, so we are likely to spend closer to $1370 on fuel this year, a saving of nearly $480. As fuel prices cannot but increase over coming years, and we hope to retain this car for at least a decade if not longer, the cost savings on fuel will only increase.

In the not-quite four weeks we have had the car, we have driven only within the metro area and are running at around 7.4L/100km as per the estimates (rather than the urban driving estimate above 8L/100km, probably because our urban driving includes regular runs on roads where we can cruise along at 70-80kph or more). I am enjoying monitoring how efficient my driving is with the real-time fuel efficiency read-out on the trip computer, which is helping me learn to drive more efficiently. Any car's fuel efficiency is only as good as the way it is driven. As I drive more gently, I immediately reduce our fuel consumption.

At this stage we are not exploring options for biodiesel, but it is a nice feeling to know that we have a vehicle that could go in that direction if (when? surely this must be 'when') technology catches up with making it readily available and issues of biofuel vs food crops are addressed (perhaps using Australian native microalgae?!). Many diesel products already on the market are blends that include biofuel.

Links:

The Australian government's Green Vehicle Guide gives all sorts of useful information and allows comparison of cars across 'green' criteria. It compares air pollution and greenhouse ratings as well as simple fuel consumption.

The government also provides an online calculator to determine the carbon emissions of your vehicle.


This article at a website about family cars has a useful fuel efficiency comparison table for people movers.

The online second-hand car sales website http://www.carsales.com.au was the main searching place once we knew what sort of car we were looking for, and also to do a little bit of comparing between some of the different makes and models that were competing for our attention. Information about listed cars includes 'green info', which for some cars only includes fuel consumption and for others has details such as CO2 emissions and a green rating. My guess is that if there's not much 'green info' included its because the report would not be very encouraging to a potential buyer.

Pretty much the day we signed a contract to purchase this car, this article about the cancer-causing properties of diesel fuel was in the news. While it is concerning that diesel has been linked to cancer by the WHO, our understanding is that these findings relate primarily to the 'particulate matter' (ie soot) in diesel exhaust. This has been dramatically reduced in recent years as cleaner diesel has been produced to meet the demand of pollution-conscious consumers and greenhouse legislation, especially in Europe.

For information about biodiesel: The Australian Government's site on biofuel quality standards; Biofuels Australia - industry peak body, with plenty of background information (although of course they are pro-biofuel so its all positive coverage!). For some discussion of other, less encouraging, aspects of the biofuel industry, have a look at these links.