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Haumarutanga rori - taiohi

Road safety - young people

The Travel Safe team work alongside schools and communities to increase active travel and keep students safe on their way to and from school.

School Travel Safe Action Plans

School Travel Safe Action Plans are community led and embedded in neighbourhoods across Tauranga and the Western Bay of Plenty.

  • Educating with in-school programmes
  • Encouraging different ways to get to and from school like walking, biking, busing, and scootering
  • Engineering better routes to school with improved crossings, school speed zones, and shared paths
  • Enforcing parking regulations around schools.

Travel Smart and Travel Safe Leaders

For more than 15 years our Travel Smart (Primary) and Travel Safe (Intermediate) leaders have been supporting the action plan by helping to deliver programmes at school and doing important voluntary work like monitoring crossings. Student leaders know what’s happening in and around their schools and address any safety issues they see. 

Parking Behaviour 

Drop off and pick up are busy times that pose a safety risk at the school gate. Travel Safe help schools to communicate things like parking time limits, drop off and pick up zones, parking over the kerb and other safety risks at the school gate. We deliver an in-school parking and safety programme named Peaceful Parker, and partner with council parking officers to do school visits when requested by schools or the community. 

Kids Can Ride 

Kids Can Ride is Travel Safe’s year 5-6 cycle skills programme. It is based on the BikeReady curriculum, an established initiative by Waka Kotahi. 

Experienced cycle skills instructors visit schools to help students learn to navigate local streets and intersections with structured learning outcomes. 

Kids Can Ride consists of two grades: Grade 1 (year 5) – Preparing for on-road riding, and Grade 2 (year 6) – Introduction to on-road riding. Students will complete grade 1 learning before being able to undertake grade 2.  

Grade 1 is held at school, usually in a field or on a court and is designed to encourage and develop basic bike control skills. The session also covers how to check and fit a helmet, and a basic bike safety check. 

Grade 2 takes place on quiet local roads and is designed to give students real cycling experience to build skills and confidence for making short journeys on local roads. Grade 2 covers how to see and be seen, communication, road positioning and cooperating with other road users. 

It’s Travel Safe’s goal to see Kids Can Ride delivered in every school in Tauranga and the Western Bay of Plenty.

For more on Kids Can Ride contact travelsafeschools@tauranga.govt.nz.

Kids can ride



Intermediate Schools' Bike Safety

The Intermediate Bike Safety programme is a natural progression from Kids Can Ride and focuses on ‘real time, real environment’ on-road cycling. 

It involves a road rules refresher, bike and helmet safety checks, school cycle safety procedures, and how to navigate intersections. The programme includes a practical skills assessment and sees students riding in their local area with an instructor.

Ruben the Road Safety Bear

Ruben the Road Safety Bear visits pre-school and younger children with his minder to talk about keeping safe around roads and traffic.

Ruben has his own song and dance – The Ruben Rock, and his focus lies in four key areas: safe passenger (child seats, seat belts and booster seats), safe pedestrian (crossing the road), playing on the street and sneaky driveways, and supervised cycling and helmet use.

For more on Ruben the Road safety bear including some fun resources visit his website.

Register for Ruben the Road Safety Bear

 

Ruben the Road Safety Bear

Kids on Feet

A Kids on Feet walking school bus is a fun, safe and active way for children to travel to and from school with adult supervision. It involves students walking together with at least at least one adult ‘driver’ and picking up children at designated stops on the way to and from school.

Walking school buses are flexible to meet the needs of schools and supported by Travel Safe with guidance and resources for students and parent/caregiver volunteers.

For help with Kids on Feet contact travelsafeschools@tauranga.govt.nz

Design Your Own Helmet Competition

Download the template and submit your design to be in to win your own one-of-a-kind helmet airbrushed by a local artist. 

Entries closed Friday, 28 February 2025.

Car Restraints

Looking for Support around car seat restraints? Contact one of our local car seat technicians at travelsafeschools@tauranga.govt.nz. We offer free car seat installations, checks, and will help answer any questions or concerns regarding your car restraint. 

Young Driver Workshop

Free young driver workshops are aimed at road users aged between 16 and 24, who hold a current learner or restricted driver licence. Participants will leave with improved knowledge, confidence, and skills.

Each workshop includes:

  • A 60-minute one-on-one driving lesson with a certified instructor
  • Waka Kotahi NZTA roadworthy vehicle check (what to check to ensure your vehicle is safe and roadworthy)
  • Driver behaviour awareness (speed, impairment, restraints, distraction, and fatigue 
  • Awareness session on sharing the road with heavy vehicles

Parents/caregivers are strongly encouraged to attend but it’s not compulsory. The four-hour workshops are held during school term holidays, usually between 9am and 1pm.  

Drive has everything you need to prepare for your learner, restricted and full licence tests.

Visit the Drive website

Young driver workshop

Feet First

The Feet First programme encourages active travel to and from school to support reduced congestion around schools and associated health, social, environmental, and economic benefits.

The programme is based on healthy fun competition through the collection travel data, celebrating healthy ways to travel, and student-led initiatives for promotion. The programme is flexible and can easily be adapted to meet the needs of the school community.

Related news

Cost savings locked in for Annual Plan 2025/26

Cost savings locked in for Annual Plan 2025/26

Tauranga City’s Mayor and Councillors yesterday settled on an average rate increase of 9.9 percent to support the city’s Annual Plan 2025/2026 – just over two percent less than the increase consulted on in April.

The decision comes after four days of deliberations this week, as the Council worked through the city’s priorities for the next financial year, with discussion centred on how greater value for money could be achieved across all projects.

Mayor Mahé Drysdale says the Council doesn’t want to slow progress down so is focused on reducing costs while maintaining service delivery and continuing to provide facilities that the community needs and wants.

“We want to deliver for Tauranga and make this city the best in the country. Many of the decisions we’re making today will make a difference in years to come. This year we’ve really invested in community facilities to cater for the city’s growing population, because many of our existing facilities are already operating at capacity,” says Mahé.

“We understand that a 9.9% average rates increase is still considerable for the community, but we are delivering around half a billion dollars’ worth of much-needed capital works, one of the largest investment programmes in the country and one of the biggest we’ve ever delivered.

“While the rates increase is higher than we would have liked, I’m satisfied that we’ve done everything we can to balance the need to invest in our future, while keeping rates affordable, including delivering $38 million of savings through this annual plan process,” Mahé says.

“I would like to commend staff for their response to our call to action to reduce spend and increase efficiencies across projects. It’s been a collective effort from the Council and staff to get to this point.

“This is just the start of our journey, and there is plenty more to do.”

Mahé thanks the community for their submissions and sharing their points of view.

“We received some constructive suggestions, and we’ve taken everything on board.

“Now the challenge is to deliver our work programme and cement-in the budget savings we’ve made.”

Community facilities to receive support in the Annual Plan 2025/26:

  • Relocatable changing rooms for Mount Maunganui Cricket Club
  • Part-funding of portaloos for Tauranga Netball at Blake Park
  • A Pāpāmoa Rugby Club relocatable clubroom facility
  • Investment in lighting for the Judea Community Sport Club (subject to feasibility)
  • Additional support for paid lifeguard services at Tay Street Beach
  • A commitment has also been made to work with Arataki Sports Club and Papamoa Tennis Club on the feasibility of future facilities.
  • Support was also given to the development of a 50-metre outdoor training pool at Mount Maunganui College, subject to due diligence, and to the investment needed to keep the Ōtūmoetai Swimming Pool up and running

Mahé says thanks to some offers of help from the community, the Council was able to approve a few items without additional rates funding.

A full list of funded projects will be available on council’s website from late-June and the Draft Annual Plan 2025/26 will go to the Council for adoption on 26 June.

Other approvals given this week:

  • Council approved $2 million of expenditure to be brought forward into the Annual Plan 2025/26 from the 2027/28 financial year, to fund and progress the Connecting Mount Maunganui detailed business case – with a further $1 million to be brought forward into the Annual Plan 2026/27 in addition to the $500,000 already allocated in that year. This would be financed through the existing transport-related infrastructure funding and financing levy (IFF), with no impact on rates. This project would aim to address improving road safety and access to, from and through Mount Maunganui.
  • Council will also invest up to $1 million in the stage two extension of the Pāpāmoa Shared Pathway, subject to this fitting within the Annual Plan budget.


Local Water Done Well

Following consultation in April, the community’s submissions on the Local Water Done Well proposals were collated and presented to the Council on 28 May.  

Community views on whether to establish a multi-council CCO were close to evenly split, with some people supporting the efficiencies of scale and regional perspective that this would bring, while others were concerned about cost increases and loss of local control.

Council resolved to keep all three waters together (drinking water, wastewater and stormwater), recognising that some stormwater land that has a high amenity value to the community should stay under council management, and noted that its proposed model remains a multi-CCO.

A public workshop to review financial modelling for the waters proposals will be held on 24 June.

A decision on the preferred delivery model is then expected to be considered at the Council meeting on 15 July. A summary of community responses can be found in council’s 26 May 2025 agenda.

Posted: May 30, 2025,

Related information

Staying safe on scooters. Information about staying safe on your scooter.

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