Two Mosman residents have launched a paid walking bus service called walked.by, offering to escort local children to and from school for $5 per trip as a Term 3 pilot in the suburb.
Julia Edgar and Sophie Krynauw started the service after noticing that many children living close to school are still dropped off by car because morning schedules are so tight. Their answer is walked.by, a structured walking bus service that puts a trained adult in charge of a small group of children along a fixed neighbourhood route.
Mosman’s geography makes the concept unusually well-suited to the area. Five schools cluster around the village, including Mosman High at 769 Military Road, Mosman Public on Belmont Road, Sacred Heart on Cardinal Street, Mosman Prep on Shadforth Street, and Queenwood and Blessed Sacrament both on Queen Street.
Beauty Point and Middle Harbour public schools sit further north toward The Spit. In a suburb of just 8.7 square kilometres, most students already live within walking distance of their school gate.
A simple idea with a lot going for it
The walked.by model works like this: trained adults called Route Managers collect children from fixed pick-up points along a capped 1.5-kilometre route and walk them to school in the morning, then bring them home again in the afternoon. Every Route Manager holds a Working With Children Check and first aid certification.
Families choose the days that suit them, from one to five per week, and can book either the morning run, the afternoon run, or both. A text confirms when the route is complete.
The service covers children from Kindy through Year 7. The service costs $5 per walk, and registrations are now open for the Term 3 pilot starting in mid-July
Julia brings significant professional experience to the venture, having led marketing roles for Amazon, HSBC and T-Mobile, while Sophie spent close to two decades in financial services. Both are Mosman residents and parents who know firsthand what the morning looks like when logistics and time collide.
“Children who live five or ten minutes from their school arrive by car, because the logistics of the morning just don’t give families another option,” Julia said. “Walking has become something that happens when you have time, and nobody has time.”
More than just getting there on time
The case Julia and Sophie make goes well beyond solving a scheduling headache. They point to established research linking walking to school with sharper concentration, reduced stress and better road awareness in children, the kind of benefits that accumulate quietly over a school year but matter a great deal.
There is also an environmental angle. The founders estimate the Mosman pilot could remove around 16 tonnes of carbon from local roads, taking a meaningful bite out of the morning crawl along Military Road that anyone who has tried to cross it at 8:45am knows well.
“We’re not just solving a logistics problem,” Julia said. “We’re trying to help children build a healthy relationship with movement, with nature and with their community. That’s something you can’t get from the back seat of a car.”
If the Term 3 pilot goes well, walked.by plans to expand into after-school sport, care, and activity routes as well.
Joining the pilot or becoming a route manager
Mosman families with children in Kindy through Year 7 can register for the Term 3 pilot here. The site also carries a jobs page for anyone interested in becoming a paid Route Manager, a role that suits local residents who want flexible, community-connected work during school hours.
For general enquiries, the walked.by team can be reached at hello@walkedby.com.au. The service is based in Mosman NSW 2088 and is also on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Published 25-June-2026
