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Heavy schoolbags are a problem for pupils who want to walk or cycle to school said Cllr Mikey Sheehy.
A LOCAL councillor wants the Council to write to the Department to ask them to consider using Tralee as a pilot town for reducing the weight of schoolbags to encourage children to walk or cycle to school.
Fianna Fáil Cllr Mikey Sheehy was responding to a progress report provided on proposed active travel measures for Tralee requested by Sinn Fein Cllr Cathal Foley at Monday’s meeting of the Tralee MD.
He was told Tralee MD presently has nine Active Travel related schemes sanctioned by the National Transport Authority (NTA) which will commence in 2024.
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These includes programmes aimed at improving ongoing issues of safety and congestion at the school gates and on routes to five schools in Tralee, namely Moyderwell Primary School; Presentation Secondary School; Sacred Heart Presentation Primary; CBS Primary and Mercy Mounthawk.
The news of the progress was welcomed by both Cllr Foley and Cllr Sheehy. However, Cllr Sheehy said an impediment to children taking the option to travel to school on foot or by bike, was the weight of their schoolbags.
Cllr Sheehy said he has three children and there is no way they could travel to school by bike because of the weight of the bags.
He said he had previously asked that the Council write to the Department about the issue. Cllr Sheehy asked that the Council write again to the Department to ask that Tralee schools be used in a pilot scheme to somehow reduce the weight of schoolbags.
Engineer Micheál Lyons, who is liaising with the NTA on the Active Travel programme in Kerry, said they will be consulting with the five schools involved and will raise the point about the weight of schoolbags.
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