Reflection
Part of Estonian children’s insufficient physical activity may be linked to the journey to school. Physical activity benefits both physical37 and mental38 health. At any age, people tend to move when it generates more positive than negative feelings and when there is a practical reason to do so. These two motives suggest two main pathways for increasing mobility.
The first, which I will not discuss in detail, is to provide children with enjoyable experiences of movement. Joyful movement in childhood, especially when reinforced through organised sport, predicts healthier activity levels later in life.39
Mobility can also be supported for practical reasons, such as travelling between home, school and extracurricular activities. The more these journeys are made by car, the more time is lost that could otherwise contribute to the recommended 60 minutes of daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity for children.40 When designing spaces and regulations, it is therefore worth asking how they can better support self-powered mobility.41
Choosing how to travel to school resembles a multi-stage competition in which each mode accumulates points based on how well it meets a family’s needs. The journey must be manageable, safe, quick and pleasant. At present, the car often wins. The question is how to redesign the system so that non-motorised mobility competes more successfully.
Proximity is central. When a school is within walking or cycling distance, independent mobility becomes realistic. This is another reason to value a consistently high-quality network of primary and basic schools. The fewer doubts parents have about the local school, the more likely children are to attend it and travel there independently.
Not all families, however, live within a few kilometres of a school. In such cases, it is important to strengthen non-motorised segments within partly motorised journeys. Public transport can play a key role, as it does not offer door-to-door travel in the way a car does. To make it a credible option for school travel, sustained investment is needed in frequency, speed, comfort and safety. Allowing bicycles on buses – for example, by installing bike racks – would further increase flexibility. Attitudes towards congestion might also shift. Congestion can function as a signal within a self-regulating system: as car travel becomes less convenient, public transport becomes relatively more attractive.
Even where car use continues, small changes can increase physical activity. If children are not dropped off directly at the school entrance but are instead set down a short distance away, extra steps become part of the school day. In less densely populated areas, streets around schools could be made car-free, creating space for both necessary and recreational movement. In denser urban areas, where closing entire streets is not feasible, removing parking and drop-off spaces near school gates can still encourage more active travel.
Extracurricular activities also generate substantial daily travel. One aim could be to develop walkable education campuses around schools, where sports facilities, music schools and activity centres are connected by safe routes for non-motorised mobility. In the long term, such campuses depend on planning decisions. In the short term, providers of extracurricular activities could be encouraged to prioritise premises located near schools.
