Walking buses win world accolade

Ces Pettit times his holidays around school breaks so he doesn't miss guiding his young 'walking bus' charges. Picture / Brett Phibbs

Millions of small Auckland footsteps are echoing around the world, thanks to "walking school bus" volunteers such as Ces Pettit.

Mr Pettit, 75, had little breathing space yesterday afternoon to celebrate the news from Australia that the Auckland Regional Transport Authority had won a prestigious international award for its TravelWise programme for schools.

He and parent volunteers of Gladstone Primary's Zippy walking bus were busy rounding up more than 50 youngsters, before escorting them safely home for the weekend along Carrington and Woodward Rds in Mt Albert.

Traffic was fast and furious on both roads, and a passenger train barrelling through the Woodward Rd crossing to meet its timetable with no sign of slowing kept Mr Pettit on his guard.

Only later at home did he have time to allow the Weekend Herald a glimpse of a citizenship medal he was awarded in 1995, after retiring as caretaker at nearby Owairaka School and returning as a volunteer to help with road-crossing patrols.

Mr Pettit was eager to step up to the mark again when Gladstone became the first school in Auckland to establish a walking bus, in 1999.

"It was just something to do - I didn't want to be sitting around at home," he said, playing down suggestions of anything more noble, even though it is many years since two of his five children attended the school.

But his dedication knows no bounds, as he can recall only one day in the past seven years when he had to call in sick.

He said he even timed holidays out of Auckland for himself and his wife around school-term breaks.

The Zippy bus has since been joined by two others plying alternative routes to and from Gladstone (the Mountain Millipede and the Rocket).

Almost 200 other walking buses are are being co-ordinated by the transport authority at about 90 schools across the region.

These are key ingredients of 130 school travel plans in varying stages of development between Waiuku and Dairy Flat, on which the authority is spending about $200,000 this year and to which city and district councils are giving financial and logistical support.

It is for the travel plans that the authority has won the International Walk to School Award, an accolade launched in 2002 by King Carl Gustaf of Sweden.

The award has since gone to Britain, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Switzerland and Australia before a unanimous vote at a Walk 21 conference in Melbourne this week pointed it Auckland's way.

Transport authority acting chief executive Elena Trout said the award recognised the "world-class" achievement of TravelWise.

The programme has reduced the number of car trips taken yearly in Auckland by about one million.

Sustainable transport manager Anna Percy, who has two daughters at Gladstone where she is also a walking bus volunteer, said the award recognised "the huge contribution and commitment Auckland parents, schools, local councils and central government have shown to making it safer and easier for children to walk to school."