Children's Mobility in Canberra: Confinement or Independence?
Tranter, Paul (1993).
Canberra: Australian Defence Force Academy; 157 pages. $NPL. ISBN 0737102719.
Children's Outdoor Environment Is Important for Their Development
The immediate outdoor environment (social as well as physical) gives opportunities for children's development. Every individual seeks knowledge and develops through a relationship of active interplay with the environment. Children play all the time and everywhere, and therefore need places to do so- places that are not dangerous and that will also allow them to get to know their own neighborhood and community. Children's need for outdoor play is well documented. Children develop through play. In their play, they are able to influence the surrounding world according to their own desires and needs. Play is pleasure-seeking. Play is also a challenge- a feeling of being master of one's own environment, both physically and mentally.
But challenge is not the same thing as realistic danger. Traffic in children's local environment implies uncalculated risks.
Children also develop through exploring the neighborhood by themselves, developing relationships with other people -children and adults -and developing a relationship with the place of their physical environment. The author quotes Engwicht (1992): 'Robbing children of a sense of place robs them of the very essence of life.' Children also 'develop feelings of territorial possession as they explore, learn and acquire competence in their use of the outdoors,' the author states, referring to Moore (1986). Besides, if children are constantly driven to school and other places, they lose one regular way of maintaining their physical fitness.
If children's physical environment is planned in such a way that their mobility is reduced, it is also a disadvantage for their parents. The parents are forced to transport their children, which leads to traffic congestion, pollution and risk, as well as economic costs. In addition, there is a need to improve children's freedom and safety, which also highlights the importance of making cities more livable for all city residents.
Do Children Today Have Any Freedom to Explore Their Own Neighborhood or City, with or without Adult Supervision- and to What Degree?
This report concentrates on this special topic, trying to describe the levels of independent mobility for children. The data are based on questionnaires given to parents and children in 13 primary schools in the Canberra area. It describes the levels of independent mobility for children in selected primary schools and relates these levels of independent mobility to the parents' perceptions of the levels of danger children are exposed to on the roads.
Independent mobility is defined as the freedom given to children by their parents at different levels to travel around in their own neighborhood or city without adult supervision. When children reach an appropriate age or level of experience, they are given various 'licenses' to travel independently- that is, to cross main roads alone, travel to school alone, catch buses alone, visit friends alone, cycle on main roads alone, go out after dark alone, and so on.
Adapt the Environment to the Children- Not the Children to the Traffic
Some international statistics are given in the report. Sweden and the Netherlands are examples of countries where the death rates of children in traffic are much lower than in other countries owing to special environmental strategies. Tranter claims that many European cities have paid considerable attention to the safety of child pedestrians, not simply in terms of educational strategies aimed at the child, but in terms of major changes to the freedom of car drivers. Nowadays we know from extensive research that it is important not to overestimate the power of road safety education and that such education should not replace work on traffic safety in the form of a risk-free environment. According to the Swedish Road Safety Commission and a parliamentary decision from 1982, children's road safety problems are regarded as depending not on themselves but on the design of the traffic environment. This view is based on previous research into children and traffic -in particular the pioneering studies of the Swedish professor of child development, Stina Sandels (1975).
The Children's Price: Decreased Independent Mobility
Of course, we are satisfied when we see accidents have decreased, but perhaps this decrease has a connection with children's loss of freedom.
In Canberra as well as in the former West Germany, England and Sweden, children seem to have paid for the decreasing accident rates by decreasing mobility. At the Stockholm Institute of Education, we are running a project on how children and adults perceive the local environment; if this evokes 'traffic environmental stress,' what actions must children, parents, teachers and others take to reduce such stress?
We are conducting this study using interviews and observation techniques, and also a questionnaire sent to parents, where we use similar questions as in the 'Canberra' and 'One False Move' (Hillman et al., 1990) studies, which made comparisons between England and West Germany. It would be of great interest to make further international comparisons.
Tranter points out that despite the fact that the road accident death rate for child pedestrians in West Germany was 33 per cent lower than in England, the level of freedom given to children in West German schools was consistently higher than for children in English schools. Even though the Canberra report pays attention to the fact that there are several factors that interact with children's mobility, it is clear that parents' worries for their children, because of environmental factors, inhibit the children's mobility.
Main Findings
Despite the complexity of the data, in the Canberra report a number of interesting main findings can be identified. They relate to:
* a comparison between Canberra data with the data from England and Germany;
* the comparison of children's freedom now with that of a generation ago;
* the importance of parents' perceptions of the level of danger;
* the differences between schools, depending on their location, design and whether they were Catholic or government schools; and
* the effect of children's age and sex.
This report also describes the fact that older people had much higher levels of freedom to explore their neighborhood. In the past 20 or 30 years, streets have been converted from 'places' to 'movement corridors,' which has affected children's- indeed, all people's -social contacts.
Every country probably has its own special problem 'pattern' because of its different culture, landscape, history, and so on, but data concerning children's independent mobility can surely be compared. The Canberra report made a comparison between schools in Canberra, England and Germany. Indicators also examined if children were allowed to cross roads alone or to go to school or cycle on main roads alone. Results showed that children in Canberra had the lowest level of independent mobility and children in Germany the highest. One marked difference between Germany on the one hand, and England and Canberra on the other, is that children in Germany are generally supervised by adults on the street, a so-called 'mutual surveillance network,' giving security to the children. There are also other factors such as school type, sex and age that are important determinants of children's independent mobility. (In the Canberra report the Catholic schools appeared the most restrictive.)
Canberra is one of the most planned cities in the world, trying to avoid already known problems such as traffic congestion, pollution and lack of open spaces. There have also been some initiatives to facilitate safe journeys to school, for instance special school speed zones. And yet, children cannot easily be allowed independent mobility.
That there are inter-generational changes in independent mobility, meaning a loss of freedom for children today compared with their parents, must be taken seriously. Regretting this loss, we must make a choice for the future. We have to choose whether the roads belong to the motorists or to the pedestrians.
If we create a friendlier environment, more people will walk or cycle. In Europe, there have been 'traffic-calming' initiatives which can give cities back to children. Traffic-calming strategies can allow the mixing of cars and people, but the relationship is important- cars have a lower priority. Traffic calming is one example of how streets once again might become places where people of all ages can interact with each other and the environment. Streets would become safer, with fewer assaults and muggings. As described in the report, traffic calming also significantly changed drivers' attitudes towards other street users!
A Vision for the Future
The Canberra report makes readers become aware of a number of feedback cycles, both bad and good. The bad cycles might result in people adapting to more inferior conditions (even without realizing it); the good cycles, on the contrary, result in livable streets and more pleasant cities, where residents of all ages can develop.
The Canberra report exposes anxiety concerning environmental development in the future. If traffic continues to grow in Australia, all people's freedom will be reduced in the long run. The author gives some steps to increase children's independent mobility- that is, to make streets safer. This can be achieved through traffic calming and lower speed limits.
Readers can also find some examples from the Swedish Road Safety Programme, which summarizes some hopeful visions for the year 2010:
* create more connected areas where children, cyclists, and pedestrians are separated from cars;
* design safer junctions with a maximum speed of 30 km/h;
* 30 km/h as the maximum speed where mixed traffic occurs; and
* give priority to unprotected -walking or cycling- children and adults.
These are a few suggestions on how to create and develop a safe traffic environment for children. The author concludes this report by warning that we are slowly adapting to environments that are harmful to us in both the short and long term. The concept of risk ought thus to be expanded to consider not only the risk of physical accidents- which is of course necessary, but not enough -but also to the risks of air emissions, noise, curtailment of children's outdoor environment, restrictions on their freedom of mobility, isolation from other children and adults, greater necessity for parental supervision and control, and so on.
References
Engwicht, D. (1992). Towards an Eco-City: Calming the Traffic. Sydney: Envirobook.
Hillman, M., J. Adams, and J. Whitelegg (1990). One False Move: A Study of Children's Independent Mobility. London: PSI Press.
Moore, R.C. (1986). Childhood's Domain: Play and Place in Child Development. London: Croom Helm.
Sandels, S. (1975). Children in Traffic. London: Elek Books.
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