Councillor Monique List will visit 13 primary schools in Eindhoven soon to see how traffic safety around the schools can be improved.
These include De Ontmoeting, De Handreiking, Evangelische Basisisschool Online, and De Hasselbraam. The Councillor for Traffic announced this on Tuesday evening, at the insistence of several of the City Council’s political parties.
The CDA, LPF, Ouderen Appèl, and ChristenUnie, had asked that the traffic situation at schools be examined. ChristenUnie also called for more traffic officers to be deployed. These should watch for people who park incorrectly or drive too fast.
This request is a result of a survey done by Studio040 among school principals and parent councils. This shows that many principals consider road safety around their schools to be substandard. Principals and parents are worried. Most also feel the Municipality is doing too little to improve the situation.
“Disappointing”
List says, “The survey’s outcome was disappointing. I am going to talk with those schools – with the management and the parents’ Council – that did not score high in the survey. We are also going to enforce additional rules at the schools so that we encourage motorists to drive more safely”.
The parties are satisfied with this commitment. However, the CDA coalition party does want more clarity in the second half of the year – to what measures have the talks with the schools led? “For each school it should be clear which traffic actions have to be taken”, CDA Councillor, Remco van Dooren, says.
The Councillor further emphasised that the Council is doing everything they can. They, for example, establishing traffic zones. These are zones with additional speed bumps, a suggested 15km/hr speed limit or zebra crossings.
She also pointed to the joint responsibility of the school, the Municipality, and the parents. “This is also about changing the parents’ behaviour,” List says. “It will help, for example, to have children hold parents to account for their driving behaviour”.
The Council can do more
The PvdA and SP also share the concerns of many school principals and parents. “There are already school zones. But the City Council can do more, by talking with schools. The Municipality can also encourage parents to become more aware of their behaviour”, SP party chairman, Murat Memis, says.
The PvdA sees things differently. “The school should firstly speak to the parents, and the parents should speak to each other. As a Municipality, we can make it safer to cycle to and from school. Then there might be fewer parents coming by car”, Councillor Jan Hopstaken suggested.
Councillor Henk Jager is less confident about this. “It is a fact that parents bring their children to school by car. They would do better to park a few streets away, and walk the last part to school”.
Source: Studio040
Translator: Bob
Editor: Melinda Walraven
