International Walk to School Day

Today is International Walk to School Day, and over five thousand schools across the country will participate in an effort to promote safer walking routes and more physical activity for children.

What should also be promoted however, is the fact that many of the areas around our schools are simply not safe. Simply putting up signs that warn of "Children Crossing, Slow Down" is not enough to slow down traffic and make an area safe for children to cross. A child was struck in Olathe this week, the third child struck by an automobile near a school this fall.

Cities and schools should be looking at better ways to slow down and reduce traffic around school buildings. Suburban schools tend to be located in exclusively residential areas. Cities should discourage the use of streets leading into schools to be used as main arterials. This may mean road diets (street thinning), reduced speed zones (all the time, not just during school hours), roundabouts, and stop signs. Instead of maximizing speed and efficiency on all roads, cities should begin thinking about moving traffic into certain corridors, while actually slowing down and reducing traffic in other areas where pedestrian traffic is likely.