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.

How to Slow Down Streets For Children

Bold. But I like it.



From the Canadian organization The Community Against Preventable Injuries.

Seven Year Old Gardner Boy Hit By Car

Tragedy in Gardner as a child was struck by a car walking from his elementary school. The full details aren't yet known, although reportedly he was not crossing at a crosswalk. It it the second student struck in Gardner in the last month. Whether or not the automobile is at fault or it is simply an accident, it does highlight a bit that there are entirely too many cars picking up kids at schools these days.

Not to get all grumpy old man on you, but when I was a child, the only time anyone picked up their kid at school was when they left early for a dentist appointment. Now there is a cavalry of SUVs lined up outside elementary schools at 3 p.m. Many schools have cut back or eliminated bus service due to budget cuts and an emphasis on "neighborhood schools" which in theory allows most students to walk to school. So you have a combination of more kids walking to schools AND more vehicles around schools. Its not a good combination.

This is a good time to point out that the Obama administration did implement a new initiative called "Safe Routes to School" to fund community projects that improve the walkability of school routes. The primary goal seems to be to encourage walking and biking to improve children's health and stem the tide of childhood obesity. But the Gardner incident highlights what should be another major goal of such an initiative.

We have massive product recalls for cribs that don't even injure a single child. We implement regulations that require child safety locks for firearms. But we seem to do little to make neighborhoods safer for kids other than putting up a few signs that everyone can ignore. And the results reflect it - about 1200 kids are injured by cribs per year. 16,000 are injured by firearms. And 25,000 are injured by motor vehicles. Its time we got serious about making schools safe areas for children.