Eco Go Day closes avenue and raises awareness about the use of alternatives to the car

It was a quieter morning on Avenida 25 de Abril, in Aveiro, yesterday closed to car traffic, but which intended to speak louder and make people heard, once again, that it would be good for students from the José Estêvão and Mário Sacramento secondary schools to arrive «at the school by an alternative means to the automobile: bicycle, scooter, walking, valuing planet Earth and preserving the environment».
This is part of the presentation text of this initiative by the parents’ associations of those two secondary schools, which had the collaboration of the two directors of the school groups, the city council, the Escola Artística do Conservatório de Música Calouste Gulbenkian and Ciclaveiro.
Every day, early in the morning, on that avenue,
There are queues of cars, causing traffic congestion, due to the excess number of cars used by parents transporting their children to the school entrances. After the morning event, Rita Simões, president of the José Estêvão parents’ association, told Diário de Aveiro that it served to raise awareness among parents (who take students to the school door by car) that “there is no need for this ».
With the avenue closed, the alternatives used were, for some, the bicycle, and for others the scooter, on foot, and, among these, a part from the place where their parents left them, by car, at the edge of the avenue’s closure. . Rita Simões admits that «it is not easy to change mentalities», but considers that it is a contribution to instilling the idea that «it is possible to get to school without using the avenue», using alternatives to the car.