The Road to School. The Barcelona case

Mobility of the young population between 6 and 10-year-old has been continuously decreasing the last decades causing problems of health (obesity) and decreasing the development of spatial skills along with the sense of community. The paper focuses on the road between school and home and deals with a specific project called “Camino Escolar” (School Road) which supports parents in the decision to authorize their children to go and walk alone. The empirical case is developed in Barcelona where 136 School Road projects exist but more precisely analyses two specific districts. The methodology is divided into two phases. In the first phase, we conduct an exploratory study based on interviews with the different stakeholders of the education system and conclude on a list of barriers against the development of the School Road project. In the second one, we ask for the parents to prioritize these barriers according to their grade of importance. The results show the different barriers can be classified into four clusters which are physical insecurities, emotional insecurities, the city infrastructure quality and the project management quality. These findings help public managers to better manage such kind of project in order to prepare future cities.