Census and sustainability: school provision, urban teenagers, and unequal access to active transport in the Republic of Ireland

Abstract

This paper analyses adolescent active transport (AT) to education in Ireland. In Ireland, there is broad consensus that commuting by walking and cycling can be advantageous to health, learning, and reducing traffic congestion and transport emissions. Thus Irish decision-makers, building on academic literature that claims that AT follows population size and density without considering the placement of schools, frequently propose ‘behavioural change’ among urban children as the primary means to overcome low AT. However decision-makers rarely investigate children's actual behaviour as commuters to education, consult children's commuting data, or consider the impact of school provision on AT. This paper challenges these approaches. Employing data reported by Irish teenagers to Census 2016 and 2011, it shows that AT does not follow population size or density but does follow educational provision including the provision of inclusive schools not segregated by religion, gender, or ability to pay.