The group has extended invitations to the event to all local primary and secondary schools, as well as to the island’s deputies, in the hope that Guernsey’s school-age community will be able to voice their ideas, concerns, and hopes for creating a more active- travel-friendly island.
‘Broadly, our aim is to try to promote active travel among students as a healthier way to get into school and a way to increase independence,’ said 18-year-old Monty Desforges, who is one of three students who established the group half a year ago.
‘Now, one of the things that the group’s done is we put out some surveys, and one of the things that came back in the surveys was that people would love to actively travel, but there’s a perception that it’s quite dangerous on the roads. I’ve been lightly tapped by cars before. We all cycle, we’ve all had close encounters, we can all attest to it.’
Inspired to take action by the results of the survey, the student group has established ‘travel pools’ – landmarks around the island from which they provide a maximally easy and safe route to take to school, cutting out the difficulty of self-navigating while on an active journey.
Now, they are looking to progress to political action with their upcoming event, in which they hope to lobby the island’s politicians to take more steps to ensure every child has a safe route to school.
‘We want to try to talk to the States and try and get every student from every school to have a safe route to walk or cycle,’ Monty said.
‘I think that that will then make our job of trying to promote that kind of travel with all the work we do here much more successful.’
The Sixth Form Centre, like quite a few of the island’s other schools, has already had its road established as a ‘school street’, limiting traffic from going down the road during drop-off and pick-up times.
According to the Active Travel Group, the street has been highly successful, making a marked difference to their everyday journeys.
‘It’s a lot quieter, a lot easier, and there’s a lot less traffic,’ said group member Harvey Huxter, 17.
‘I definitely feel a lot safer coming down that road now.’
While the group does not have a concrete proposal for the changes they would like to see implemented, they are taking some inspiration from the success of the school streets, suggesting that traffic should be more limited at certain times in other areas of the island.
‘The school street just demonstrates how much more pleasant the experience is, and how much safer, when you remove the cars,’ Monty said.
‘Cars are incredibly space-inefficient and polluting, but also just a massive metal box – not the most pleasant thing to have around you while you’re cycling.
‘The street has absolutely proven that this concept works, and so now it needs to be expanded, and what that looks like, I don’t know.
‘I don’t work at Traffic and Highways, but it needs to be expanded in some kind of way that makes the vision of every student having a safe way to get to school more of a reality.’
While they may not work at Traffic and Highways, the students have already been working with them, meeting with them to discuss their active travel vision for the island. So far, they reported, the reaction from the civil authority has been largely positive.
‘There’s so much political will for this within the States and the civil service, but they just need to know that there’s the will of the public for this to happen as well,’ Monty said.
‘That’s what this event is about, really. It’s about giving a voice to the students from all schools. There’s a real will for this to happen among young people, and we want to make that heard.’
The students said the reaction to their ideas has been broadly supported wherever it has been proposed, but they are not yet without their detractors.
‘Everyone has their own opinions, and some people say this is a terrible idea,’ said 17-year-old Gazelle Adaya.
‘At the same time, every great idea does have pushback.’
Harvey added that while there was initially much to-do about the implementation of some school streets, the change eventually was accepted and even celebrated.
‘There was a lot of pushback at the start, but now it works really well,’ he said.
‘Like at St Martin’s, when they added their school street, after the first days everyone just learned their way around.
‘People will complain because it’s change, but most of the time it does work out, and if it doesn’t, there are ways to fix it.’
Despite the slight opposition they have encountered, the students are determined to make their voices heard at next month’s event, which they hope will see a large number of deputies and primary and secondary school students in attendance.
The event is set to take place at the Sixth Form Centre on 8 July, running from 4.30 to 5.30pm.
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