Council
The Ontario Active School Travel (OAST) Council is an advisory committee composed of selected provincial leaders in active school travel working to advance the cause of active school travel in Ontario by identifying and addressing strategic opportunities, priorities, and threats. Its goal is to create a culture of active school travel and make active transportation and independent mobility normative for school-aged youth.
Members
Leslie Maxwell, School Travel Planning Supervisor, Student Transportation Services of Waterloo Region (Chair)
Michelle Aarts, Trustee, Toronto District School Board
Marilyn Crawford, Regional Councillor (Ward 1), Town of Ajax
Teresa Di Felice, AVP Government & Community Relations, CAA Club Group
Dr. Charles Gardner, MD, Medical Officer of Health, Simcoe Muskoka Health Unit
Barry Horrobin, Director of Planning & Physical Resources, Windsor Police Service (Vice-Chair)
Ashley Hutchinson, Manager of Finance, Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario
Vicky Kyriaco, CAO and GM, Ottawa Student Transportation Authority
Craig Murphy, Consortium Manager, Student Transportation Services of Thunder Bay
Dr. Subha Ramanathan, Manager, Bicycle Friendly Communities, Share the Road Cycling Coalition
Matthew Sweet, Manager of Active Transportation, City of Mississauga
Nancy Wirtz, Senior Specialist, Cancer Prevention, Canadian Cancer Society, Ontario Region
Resources
Read the Council Guidelines for Safe Healthy School Travel during COVID-19 (October 2020)
Developing Indicators of Active School Travel
The OAST Council adopted a Change Framework in December 2018 with the vision statement:
A culture of active school travel is established in Ontario, such that walking and wheeling on the school journey is supported and becomes the norm. One of the eight priority areas of the OAST Council Change Framework is measuring, monitoring, and demonstrating progress. As a first step in addressing that priority area, Green Communities Canada commissioned a consultant to seek input from a panel of experts and develop an indicator framework for measuring change in active school travel in Ontario. The objective of this work was to identify and prioritize process indicators of Active School Travel that were both important to measure and feasible to collect. Read the full report here.
Parent Engagement Working Group
The Council established a working group to identify key elements required to develop a campaign to increase parental acceptance of and participation in active school travel in Ontario.
From 2018-2020, the working group gathered existing research on barriers and enablers identified by parents, as well as best practices, tools, and campaigns that have effectively addressed those barriers. The findings of this work have been compiled into a summary report available here.
From 2021-2022, Ontario Active School Travel will be implementing a pilot project to further develop these engagement strategies. For more information please contact us.
Quarterly Updates
Four times a year the Council produces an overview of developments in active school travel with provincial significance. Quarterly Update #14 – October 2021.