Are Master-Planned New Urbanist Suburbs a 'Solution' for Sustainable Travel to Schools? Comparing children's travel in select Australian primary schools

Abstract

Abstract: Development at the fringes of Australian cities commonly takes the form of large masterplanned estates incorporating significant features of New Urbanist design. Connective street networks, off-street pathways and footpaths provided on every street, with civic buildings located in or near neighbourhood centres, are in marked contrast to 1980s suburban design. Both the theoryunderpinning New Urbanism and the marketing of these estates suggests they should increase rates of children walking and cycling to school. The CATCH and iMATCH studies have captured the travel behaviour and attitudes of 10-13 year old children and their parents at nine primary schools in Rockhampton, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth. Included was a large master-planned estate in Ipswich City, in Brisbane's west, that embodies these New Urbanist design features. The research used travel diaries and attitudinal surveys amongst other methods. This paper focuses on the results from the 250 children that completed travel diaries. Key measures include mode share and children's independent mobility rates for the schools in the sample, and related variables such as bicycle ownership. The results suggest the Ipswich master-planned estate had relatively low mode shares for walking, cycling and other non-motorised travel to school, as compared to other schools in the sample. Preliminary analysis suggests that school catchment size, which is increasingly large in these new estates, the 'busyness' of parents, and a lack of supportive policy interventions may each be associated with this limited take up of children's walking and cycling to school. Key words: children's travel behaviour, journeys-to-school, New Urbanism, master-planned estates.