KarunaNews Story

While Bratislava already seems family friendly, the Slovakian capital is launching a city-wide effort to focus its planning and development around children. The city is improving streets around schools and kindergartens to make walking safer and creating a “pedestrian bus” program, where adult monitors walk children to school en masse carrying a cardboard cutout bus. School forecourts are being expanded, to give parents and carers picking up children more space. The city is widening sidewalks and adding crosswalks and curb extensions to make pedestrians more visible to drivers. In the city’s Freedom Square, where playground equipment has been installed on fresh grass shaded by newly planted trees, the plaza is full of squealing children paddling shoeless in the stepped basin of the reactivated fountain.