Ministers have just announced that there will be no ‘travel mode’ question in the next school census. I find this curious because the school run is a hugely challenging and emotive subject for parents and for other car commuters. Here are a couple of charts showing who how things have changed over the past 15 years during which time this information has been collected. Notice that more primary age kids will be traveling to school by car than on foot soon if current trends continue, also that the car and local bus is gaining with secondary school age kids at the expense of waking. Cycling is lost in the noise at the bottom. I wonder if the parents at these Brentwood schools parents will start chucking rocks at traffic wardens again? Was it relevant, per-chance that these statics were first collected in 1995 just after the previous conservative government abandoned the ‘great car economy’ following an epidemic of road protests in the 1990s? (walking is dark blue and is highest for both groups, cars are in yellow and are next highest for primary school kids and have similar percentage as for local buses for secondary school kids. Local buses are in dark purple).
Travel to school by mode of transport (1995-2010)
Pedestrian Liberation 
And at a time when we need to say no to ridiculous car trips, but then Eric “Rubber Knickers” Pickles is always telling us that people need their cars. There is a disconnect between politics and reality…
will do. silly mistake.
sorted. I have added a description of the chart rather than try to guess which colours would be good. The Mac could possibly be more helpful by providing a pallet of suitable colours. If it ha oen then I haven’t found it yet.
Sorry, for the colour blind amongst us, can you spell out which is “walk” and which is “bus” for the two graphs?
Ta!