That picture reminds me of when I was working for a title company in Bozeman. At least once a week the pre-schoolers would walk to the park. To keep the kids together each child held onto a rope with a teacher at either end. Someone in the office would call out, "Here comes the chain gang," as the tots filed past our picture window.
"I am very good at reading women, but I get into trouble for using the Braille method."
~ Otterpop ~
You should have walked faster so you got to school in time for the spelling lesson.Originally posted by DetroitPlanner
Truetrue. One of my peers is doing research on that subject for her Ph.D. I had no trouble wandering around myself, and when I was young would occasionally grab my bicycle and ride seven miles into town to visit people, etc. without doing more than leaving a note saying that i'd be back later. Now everyone is freaking paranoid but it's MORE safe now than it was then. As I recall, from one lecture, in the 60's and such, the ability to get around the city alone by public transit was considered a standard measure of growth, penned at 9 years.
I can only hope it's a fashion that will die off with this generation.
I had never witnessed this phenomenon until last month when we had a meeting at an elementary school at about 4:00pm. There was a line of SUVs and minivans about 50 deep encircling the school. A teacher with a walkie talkie approached each vehicle and radioed ahead to another teacher who then announced the name to all of the waiting students. It was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen.
I understand that many of these children live too far from the school to walk, but aren't there bicycles and school buses available? How about car pools? This seems like a tremendous amount of wasted energy and time to me. Not to mention how spoiled these kids become.
I walked to school throughout elementary school and rode the bus in middle school (had to pay 45 cents per token for a special city bus). When I missed my school bus in high school, my mom gave me 60 cents to catch the city bus that came 10 minutes later. We are only talking 12+ years ago. Why is today that much different?
We have just started working on the Safe Routes to Schools program here (funded in SAFETEA-LU). One of the recommended strategies is the walking school bus. Another "program" involves dropping kids off at a satellite location (i.e. church, shopping center, etc.) and walking the final few blocks to school. Completely stupid. What have we become?
Maybe then the kids would lose some weight.
We do this at the small catholic school that my kids attend, but our enrollment comes from a large area such that very few kids could walk to school. Mine could walk but the school is on a major arterial with ADT of 19,000. There are no crossing guards, no traffic signal between our house and the school, and drivers ignore the posted speed limits. Later this year, we will probably let the kids start walking home from school, but I'm honestly nervous about it.I had never witnessed this phenomenon until last month when we had a meeting at an elementary school at about 4:00pm. There was a line of SUVs and minivans about 50 deep encircling the school. A teacher with a walkie talkie approached each vehicle and radioed ahead to another teacher who then announced the name to all of the waiting students. It was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen.
An ADT of 19,000 is reasonable for an arterial. I cross two four-lane streets with that volume on the way to work everyday (one with a median, but no crosswalk or signal). Children over 8 or 10 with a basic pedestrian knowledge should be fine crossing such streets. I see kids riding bikes and walking along/across such streets all the time. In Boston, many children walked to school along streets with four-lanes and 20,000+ ADT. Granted, the city provided crossing guards at all nearby intersections.
Why doesn't the school or city provide a crossing guard and why hasn't the city installed a signal?
This is sort of a vicious cycle. Parents do not allow their children to walk to school because of crazy drivers and a lack of pedestrian amenities. People drive crazy because the streets are designed for speed and drivers do not expect to see people or children walking along the streets. The city does not install pedestrian amenities because very few people walk and the ones that do have no political voice.
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