Contrasting Stakeholders’ Perspectives on the First Full-Year School Street Initiatives in Ontario, Canada

Abstract

A growing number of municipalities in North America and globally are experimenting with various forms of street closure interventions to support non-motorists in reclaiming city streets as public spaces. While many interventions are episodic in nature, intensive interventions that operate daily for months or years are difficult to implement because they are more disruptive of the status quo and more likely to face opposition from influential stakeholders. The objective of this study was to capture and compare the perspectives of three distinct stakeholders – residents, parents, and children – regarding school street interventions that operated daily from September to June in two neighbourhoods in a mid-sized Canadian city. Resident and parent perspectives were captured using anonymous online surveys, while child perspectives were captured using focus groups. Children and parents from both neighbourhoods perceived a need for the intervention to eliminate the hazards posed by vehicular congestion around the school entrance. Both groups reported that the intervention increased safety for children as they come and go from school each day. Residents were less convinced that the intervention was necessary and reported increased congestion on neighbouring streets. There were notable differences in residents’ perspectives between the two neighbourhoods regarding perceived changes in safety and in their experiences of the interventions, which are likely attributable to differences in built form and pre-existing traffic patterns in each neighbourhood. Motorists, whether as parents or residents, were much less likely to observe the intervention as beneficial and pleasant, and more likely to report observing problems with how it operated. These findings offer critical insights for policy and practice for street closure interventions, including having an effective strategy for traffic management to minimize opposition, the value of pilot testing to build support, and centering children's needs and voices in efforts to reclaim streets as public space.