Walk or Bike to School Day
01. Oct, 2009 
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“My bike takes me places that school never could.”
Anonymous
Kids love to ride bikes to school with friends
By Tara R. McKee
Next Wednesday, October 7th is International Walk or Bike to School Day. Yes, you read that right: “International.” It is a day that is observed in 42 countries. I am of two minds: what a great concept and yet, seriously, things have come to such a state that a day like this is needed to promote walking and biking to school in all those countries?!
Sadly, too few children who live within easy walking or biking distance of their schools actually walk or bike there very often. Instead, we parents are driving them to and from school. We all know the result: the kids are less fit, the environment is needlessly polluted, and local officials are never given the heavy pressure to improve things if the routes to school aren’t safe enough for children who are walking and biking.
The truth about driving your children to school is that we are making the problem worse with the traffic congestion around the schools.
- Almost 50% of children that are hit near schools are hit by other parents driving to or from the school *
- About 1/3 of children who are injured are hurt when getting out of a car and an additional 1/5 of those are hurt when they come out into the street from behind a parked car. **
- 70% of schools have traffic that spills over onto adjacent streets because campus capacity is exceeded or parents use through streets to pick up or drop off students. *
*New York Transportation Insider
**Canadian Institute of Child Health
These are just a few of the problems and issues related to the unnecessary use of cars for short distance transportation. What are the solutions? This is the first of a three-part series about school children walking and biking to their schools.
Kids enjoy biking to and from school
We’d Love Your Feedback:
- Too often we throw solutions at problems we don’t fully understand. Why are we as parents driving our children to school?
- If your children are walking and biking to school almost every day, what have you done to encourage it?
- What are the schools in your area doing right or doing wrong?
My children usually walk to and from school. If they weather is too cold or wet, I will pick them up. We are lucky to have a neighborhood school where a large number of families live within reasonable walking distance and yet I see a long line of cars waiting to pick up children. I wonder if it is because we are so scheduled that the 10-15 minutes it would take to walk would make them late for a lesson or practice of some sort. We have become an over-committed society as a whole and maybe it is trickling into this part of our lives as well. Another reason would obviously be safety. We could all drive a little slower and pay more attention. I know I could.
Diligent parents can convince their PTA and/or school to apply for Safe Routes to School (SR2S) funding to create, you guessed it, safe routes to school, and provide education on how to use them.
That is a great idea, I will see if I can get my kids to ride this day.
Jonathan is so right–funding is available to help make your child’s route to school a safe one with the necessary sidewalks and bike lanes. In “Part Deux” of the Bike or Walk to School day, I will give the Safe Routes to School website.
I was thrilled with the amount of families that walked to school today. Our school is adopting every Wednesday as a walk to school day and calling it Walk-A-Rama Wednesday. It would be nice if kids would walk everyday, but small steps lead to giant leaps. Go Upland Terrace!