Firrhill High School School Travel Plan

Firrhill High School

School Travel Plan

October 2013

Contents

Introduction 3

The School and Catchment Area 3

School Travel Questionnaire 4

Aims and objectives 11

Action Plan 12

I Bike 13

Monitoring and Evaluation 13

Signatories 13

Appendix 1 - Information on Paths and Bike Routes 14

Appendix 2 – Sources of Affordable Bikes and Learning Repair Skills 16

Appendix 3 – Public Transport Links 17

Appendix 4 – The Wheel Deal Cycle Leaflet 18

Introduction This School Travel Plan documents the measures and initiatives that will be implemented by Firrhill High School to:

 reduce unnecessary car use  encourage healthy and sustainable travel options  increase safety for students and staff getting to and from school

This is fully in accordance with the school aims, which are:

 To offer high quality educational experiences accessible to all  To educate each student to his/her full potential within a secure, welcoming environment where staff, students and parents work together in partnership

The measures will include walking, cycling and public transport initiatives as well as engineering and educational programmes.

The School and Catchment Area Firrhill High School is a six year comprehensive school situated in the south west of Edinburgh. The school occupies an attractive site overlooking the Pentland Hills and has a roll of 1160 pupils and over 120 staff. It welcomes pupils from Oxgangs, Bonaly, Colinton, Longstone and Pentland Primaries as well as St. Mark’s RC Primary and many others outwith the catchment area.

School Travel Questionnaire The online pupil questionnaire was designed by pupils in collaboration with the City of Edinburgh Council’s Road Safety Section. The questionnaire was launched in May 2011 and elicited 231 responses. This represents a 19.9% sample of the total student population, though it should be borne in mind that many S4 and S5 pupils were on study leave. The representation across year groups is listed below along with the male/female distribution of respondents.

School Travel Breakdown The pie chart below shows walking is the most popular means of transport to school at nearly 50%. This is followed by bus at 28.7% with nearly 22% being driven by their parents. Seeing how people sometimes travel shows a few more get dropped off, use motor bikes and cycles whilst asking how they’d prefer to travel, the majority are happy with what they already do but several would like to drive, motor bike or cycle.

It is interesting to see how long it takes pupils to get to school. 33% take 10 minutes or less with a further 34% taking between 10 and 20 minutes. This still leaves 32.6% taking over 30 minutes. Crosstabbing the two shows that car travel features on many of the shorter journeys but not on the longer. It’s also interesting to see how some people walk for over 30 minutes. One thing which is notable is bicycles don’t feature much. Part of the reason for this may be that out of the 227 people who answered the question, 105 claimed not to have a road-worthy bicycle.

The question of how students would ideally like to travel shows the majority happy with what they currently do but a few who would prefer walking, cycling or bus but rather more who’d like to drive themselves by car and motorbike

Looking at the plot of all the participant’s post codes, it shows a main cluster between Oxgangs, Colinton Mains and Greenbank with smaller clusters around Longstone, Bonaly and Colinton which are all within walking and cycling distance but there are a significant number from outwith the school catchment extending from Wester Hailes to Davidson’s Mains in the north and Moredun in the east. Whilst some are a considerable distance, most are on direct bus routes though travel from Saughton and Davidson’s Mains would require 2 buses. In these cases, cycling would provide a much faster option.

Students were then asked what would improve things for them or encourage them to adopt different sustainable travel modes. The results for each are below:

Whilst in all cases, the majority of respondents were not interested in changing modes, items which stood out were the desire for lockers, drying facilities, better lighting, cleaner streets and incentive schemes for walking, whilst for cycling, having my own bike came top. For buses, better timed and more reliable services were the main issues. Of suggested scheme, car sharing was the top followed by a bicycle users group.

Finally, students were asked for their main concerns and desires for improvements

Our travel plan priorities can be based on those that we can do something about.

Aims and objectives

Aim

 To encourage and support healthy and sustainable travel to Firrhill High School.

Objectives

 To maintain the current low number of cars in the environment surrounding the school

 To maintain and increase the proportion of students and staff travelling to school by active means

 To improve the safety of all students and staff travelling to and from school

Action Plan

Action Responsibility Timescale Resources Ask Services for Communities Local Road Safety On-going Network Neighbourhood Manager for Interventions Officer pavement gritting as a higher priority Increase and maintain anti-bullying School staff/students On-going and personal safety campaigns

Ask council to improve lighting and Road Safety On-going visibility on paths Interventions Officer

Participate in the National “Hands Up” School Every Student and survey September staff time Respond to requests for improvements City of Edinburgh April 2014 Staff time identified through the Travel Survey Council

New crossings on Colinton Road, Road Safety Completed Oxgangs Road North, Craiglockhart Interventions Officer Avenue and Redhall Road. New lit path to link Braidburn with Road Safety Completed Redford Interventions Officer Assess need for any extra school Pupil Council/School Student and lockers for cyclists. staff time, funding if more needed Investigate provision of cloakroom Pupil Council/School Student and space for drying wet clothes and staff time footwear Ask Lothian Buses/First Bus if they can Pupil Council/School Student and retime route 18 journeys to better staff time match school time Encourage students and staff to sign Eco Committee/Pupil Student and up to www.tripshareedinburgh.com to Council/School staff time arrange journey sharing for any travel mode Encourage school to apply to be a Eco Committee/Pupil Student and Cycle Friendly Secondary School: Council/School staff time http://cyclingscotland.msol.org.uk/Uplo ads/1350658247_109119414_CycleFrie ndlySecondaryHandbookJuly2012.pdf and register as a Bicycle User Group on www.scotbug.com

Provide Dr Bike sessions and promote Eco Committee/Pupil Student and them especially to those whose bikes Council/School staff time, are not road worthy. Also highlight funding if sources of second hand bikes external Dr. Bike required 12

I Bike Firrhill is a founding I Bike school. It received full engagement from Lynn Stocks of Sustrans from 2009-11 who set up the Bike Crew and ran lots of cycle related activities including pump track sessions, Dr.Bike, rides from the cluster primary schools to Firrhill for P7s and also supported the provision of the bike sheds. Additionally, infrastructure to benefit cycling and walking was installed. Suggested quiet routes to Firrhill may be found in Appendix 1.

Monitoring and Evaluation  We will have an informal review six months after the travel plan is signed with further reviews to monitor progress of each action point  We will re-survey students and staff in 3 years to reassess the situation  Each September we will participate in the national “Hands Up Scotland” school travel survey

Signatories

Kate Nicolson – Eco Teacher

Carolyn Hargest – Environment Group Leader

Lorna Norman – Active Schools Co-ordinator

Julie Statham – Depute Head Teacher

Mark Symonds – Road Safety Interventions Officer

Appendices Appendix 1 - Information on Paths and Bike Routes

The following suggested routes from Firrhill’s cluster primary schools have been drawn up and are used for P7 rides to Firrhill:

Longstone to Firrhill Via Union Canal http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/fullscreen/139922547/

Longstone to Firrhill via Colinton Dell (Dell is unlit and path is unsurfaced) http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/fullscreen/213724489/

Bonaly to Firrhill by quiet route via Redford Road Crossing and new Colinton Primary Path http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/fullscreen/213729167/

Pentland Primary to Firrhill High via Cockmylane and Braidburn Path http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/fullscreen/213735701/

There are a wide variety of free maps available detailing off-road and quiet routes to the school and around the area. http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/385/cycling_in_edinburgh/542/cycling/2 has links to the online cycle journey planner http://edinburgh.cyclestreets.net/ as well as seven maps covering North, North West, North East, South, South West, South East and West Edinburgh, the site also contains suggestions of interesting places to go, guidance on road safety, cycle training and choosing a bicycle. Firrhill High is on the South sheet from which the extract below is taken.

All of the above leaflets may be ordered from Clarence on 0800 23 23 23 between 8 am and 8 pm Monday to Friday or by emailing [email protected] with your name, address and maps you require. Spokes, the Lothian Cycle Campaign produce excellent cycle maps of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian, West Lothian and Glasgow at £5.95. They are available from bookshops, cycle shops and tourist information centres, online from www.spokes.org.uk or by post from: SPOKES, St. Martin's Church, 232 Dalry Road, Edinburgh EH11 2JG. Discounts are offered for bulk orders. To get an idea of where you can go entirely off-road on Edinburgh’s cycle paths see http://www.innertubemap.com/ for a simple, London Underground style diagrammatic plan.

Appendix 2 – Sources of Affordable Bikes and Learning Repair Skills The Bike Station, 250 Causewayside, Edinburgh EH9 1UU, Tel 0131 668 1996, www.thebikestation.org.uk sells refurbished bikes and parts Tuesday to Saturday 10 – 5 (Wednesday until 8) and has fix your own bike sessions with tuition at £4 per hour, Saturdays 12 – 4pm and Wednesdays 4 – 8pm (last entry 1 hour before closing).

Appendix 3 – Public Transport Links

4 23 10 27 , 45

10,18,45

4 18 27

This map shows the location of bus stops (from www.transportdirect.info) with bus routes in maroon. Main routes are Lothian Buses: 4 Hillend to The Jewel via Hunter’s Tryst, Slateford Road, Haymarket, Princes St, London Road, Northfield and Bingham every 15 mins 10 Torphin/Bonaly to Western Harbour via Tollcross, Princes Street, Leith Walk and Great Junction Street every 10 mins 18 Royal Infirmary to South Gyle via Moredun, Gilmerton, Fairmilehead, Colinton and Wester Hailes hourly (run by First Bus outside rush hours) 23 Glenlockhart(Napier Uni)/Greenbank to Trinity via Morningside, Tollcross, The Mound and Goldenacre every 10 minutes

27 Hunter’s Tryst to Silverknowes via Tollcross, The Mound, Goldenacre, Crewe Toll and

Muirhouse every 10 mins

45 Heriot Watt to Queen Margaret University via Currie, Colinton, Tollcross, Chambers Street, London Road and Portobello every 30 mins

Full timetables are on www.lothianbuses.com or ring 0131 555 6363. To plan a “point to point” journey click on www.travelinescotland.com, download the app or ring 0870 6082608. To get real time information on when your bus is due see www.mybustracker.co.uk or download the app.