So why can't kids walk to school?

[politicat]

I've lived in some really bad neighborhoods. I lived in the time before stranger danger, when kids were not told to be careful of weirdos in Lincolns offering candy. Heck, my folks got and BELIEVED the Blue Star Acid memo.

And we walked to school. Nothing ever happened - we didn't get run over, beat up, kidnapped, yelled at, picked up by the cops for child endangerment, or anything else. The worst thing we did was buy candy at the little drugstore on the way home and take oranges off of trees that overhung the sidewalks. (The store sold fun size stuff illegally, as well as bucket candy. It's legal to take oranges hanging over the public right of way as long as we didn't damage the tree.) We were latch key kids, and to my certain knowledge, the worst my sisters and I ever did was a little pot and get drunk on mini-bottles of root beer schnapps that my parents had for some reason. (Not me, I hate root beer.) All three of us went to college, though we went on our own time and our own dimes. My parents couldn't afford for my mother not to work, or to take time off to come pick us up (let alone the gas), and she needed me to start supper. Daycare is expensive - once I could be trusted with my sisters (when I was 10 and they were 7 and 4) I picked up the baby on my way home from school and kept an eye on both of them until my parents got home.

Denver-Metro is SAFER than my neighborhoods were: this area has bike lanes, side walks, cross walks, walk signals (and cars MUST stop for pedestrians and people walking their bikes). We have Amber alerts and cell phones now, and most kidnappings are familial, anyway. Drugs are harder to get, more expensive, and booze and cigs are almost impossible for a 22 year old to buy, let alone a 12 year old. Sexual abusers are usually family members, not strangers. And kids are far smarter about dealing with bullies than we were -- bullying wasn't taken seriously even 15 years ago. It is now.

So what has changed? What memo did I miss by not being a parent?

[NMDemDist2]

1. it's the climate of fear that the Big News has fostered IMO

I read a study that if you took all the cars off the road of adults driving their children to school every morning the average commute time would be cut in half due to lessened traffic

I dunno how we got to be such a nation of cowards :shrug:

[conscious evolution]

30. I have no doubts

about that.
Traffic in Atl noticeably decreases when school is out.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. I NEVER got driven to school. I walked until I was old enough to go to a

school that was too far to walk to, and then I took a bus.

[politicat]

3. Kindergarten was it for me...

And looking back, I understand why -- school was 4 miles away, it was the only kindergarten in the area (Indiana still does not have mandatory kindergarten), it was rural Indiana in winter, and I was... erm.... flighty. (Some five year olds can be trusted. I kicked my sister in the face, would literally string my toys across a room - laid 'em out in lines - and tied my hair in knots. Complex ones. It must have relieved my mother greatly that I grew up to be so much more responsible.)

First grade I went to a large, consolidated school built out in the middle of farm fields where everyone was bused in, even high schoolers (no cars allowed on campus for teenagers without a work permit and massive amounts of parental paperwork). It kept the ditching to a minimum.

After that, I went to neighborhood schools, usually about a mile away until I was in high school, when I ended up in another rural school. But I still did a lot of walking and biking, even then -- if I wanted to do after school activities, I had to get my own rides or deal.

[eleny]

4. Same here!

Mom waved goodbye from our porch in Woodhaven, Queens and I walked 10 blocks to the Catholic school or took the bus with my bus pass. Rain, shine, sleet, snow or piercing winter winds. We bundled up, wore "rubbers", carried umbrellas and school bags that weighed a ton. And now, 50 years later lived to tell about it.

[Massacure]

5. I walk to and from school everyday.

I have for the last eight years. I will for nine more days. NINE MORE!!! :party: :hippie: :toast: :bounce:

[LiberalEsto]

6. No sidewalks

In my neighborhood the kids can walk to elementary school, but getting to the middle school and high school requires walking along main roads with heavy traffic and no sidewalks, and crossing those roads. In the winter, the high school kids start school when it's still dark. It is just not safe. I wouldn't do it myself.

People also drive worse these days, and get distracted yammering on their cell phones. I don't want one of these idiots veering off the road and hitting a kid on a busy, dark highway.

[politicat]

7. Hee.... Cell phone drivers aren't worse than Marines.

It's just not physically possible. That much testosterone packed into WAY too much vehicle... Even a phone isn't that distracting.

Maybe it was the growing up in the desert thing, but I started school before it was light out (I left for school at 5:45 so I'd be there by 6:30 so I could practice for an hour before school started) and in the winter, the sun was BARELY above the horizon at 7:30. Yuma didn't have a lot of sidewalks, and it got evil cold in the winter -- dropping from 120s in the summers to 20s and teens in the winters is a painful drop (100 degree variation is hard on the body.) Not so much on the sidewalk thing, either... though there were curbs. Just no sidewalks.

Here's a big difference I've noticed - headphones. I never had a set of headphones for my walk to school, and for that matter, we weren't allowed to have anything of the sort (walkmans being the standard at the time). Now, I commute with a lot of teenagers and college students and they ALL have headphones on. I've grabbed two or three by the arm to keep them from getting smeared because they didn't Look and Listen before crossing the street. I can't blame it all on the cellphone people -- everybody is absorbed in their own worlds these days and no one is paying attention to those around them.

But adults are just as likely to be smeared as a kid.

[LiberalEsto]

8. Does Yuma have the kind of heavy traffic

that we live with in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC?

[politicat]

9. Yeah, actually.

Crappy, crappy urban planning. The city quadruples in size between October and April, because about a brazillion ... erm... "Winter Visitors" descend on the city like vultures on a roadkill. But since the city and county don't have property taxes levied on people who are resident for less than 5 months and 20 days, the city and county has almost no money to support that influx. Sales taxes sort of take up the slack, but not really. So there are afternoon gridlocks caused by 140 year old snowbirds looking for the entrance to the Walmart in the left lane at 7 MPH. And massive accidents caused by the 19 year old Marines on a 20 hour leave from 29 Stumps and MCAS who are looking to blow 3 months' pay on some lap dances and a willing date. And accidents caused by cruising 16 year olds in momma's burb beater.

The city also has one of about 3 residential community colleges in the state, and since any state resident can go to any community college for the resident rate, there are a lot of kids who couldn't get into one of the state unis who come to Yuma for their first two years. The tuition is cheap, the dorms are not as crowded as the state uni dorms are, and if you can breathe and are a state resident and managed to sleep your way through to HS graduation, you can get admitted to an Arizona community college. So between September and May, the city gains about 50K college students and their cars.

Earthbound Organics, Grimway Farms and a several others move their operations - lock, stock and lettuce harvesters - to Yuma and the Imperial Valley from November to March. They bring about 30,000 employees and their families into the region that centers on Yuma, not to mention an unknown number of agricultural labor that may be legal and may not be. They also employ a lot of day crossers, people who cross the border each morning to work in the winter vegetable fields and return each night (usually by company owned buses) to border shanty towns.

The base runs at a minimum of 5000 people, and that number swells to 14,000 (plus families and contractors) when something that needs desert experience is about to happen or is happening. MCAS is running hot and crowded right now.

Summer population in Yuma is about 70,000 and the roads and infrastructure are appropriate for that. Winter population is almost 500,000 (including the outlying areas that rely on Yuma for groceries and consumer goods) and the infrastructure doesn't handle it at all well. Yuma is the desert oasis for more than 100 miles around; it has the only mall, the only hospital that can really handle anything more serious than a C section, etc.

And no public transit. At least the DC region has transit.

[Ellen Forradalom]

10. My son's school will be too far :-(

That's the only reason.

[semillama]

11. I actually walked home from school in a blizzard a few times.

I look forward to telling my kids that someday.

The most memorable time was the same day the Challenger blew up, because it was a particularly nasty blizzard with cutting winds and lots of blowing snow. I remember we got out of school early and I walked home, barely able to see 20 feet in front of me, and turning on the tv at home expecting to veg out and there's the shuttle blowing up.

[we can do it]

12. Fear Fear Fear Always Be Afraid

Its a crock of shit - if kids walked, nothing would happen, except maybe a decline in obesity.

[phantom power]

17. Nothing would happen to *most* kids.

and a few would get abducted.

[knitter4democracy]

13. My kids are walking this year.

We switched them to the public elementary at the main road our street comes off of. They'll be walking, and I'll be walking with them for the first few weeks and do so all year with my five year old (otherwise, that boy would play hookie at the drainage ditch and look for frogs). I don't know why most in our cul de sac don't walk, though. I'm only going to drive in bad weather.

I walked my dad's gravel driveway as a kid to the bus stop at the road, and that was an 1/8th of a mile. That seemed forever when I was young and wearing the dresses my stepmom made me wear, even on rainy, windy days when it was pitch black outside, and I didn't have a flashlight to see the puddles. If I could survive that, I know my kids'll be okay. We know one of the families on the way, and there's a church they can run to, and our house isn't much farther after that.

[raccoon]

14. What I wonder is why can't kids take the bus to school?

Seems all parents have to drive their kids to school these days.

[electron_blue]

21. Nowadays to save money, many districts won't bus kids who live within 2 miles of the school.

I think 4 miles roundtrip is too much walking to expect kids to do by themselves w/o getting into trouble. Especially during Minnesota winters when it is often below zero (with and w/o windchill).

We live a mile away and I walk my child to/from. I see other kids who walk themselves. I always keep an eye on the really young ones. They dart out in traffic - makes me nervous!

[conscious evolution]

29. It was a mile

where I grew up.
I also remember hearing a justification for daylight savings time-"It's so children don't have to walk to school in the dark!"

[MrsMatt]

15. We live in a good neighborhood,

albeit on a busy street.

Our 10 year old daughter's school is 2 miles from our house. However, her school is a block away from an expensive private K-12 school, and she'd need to pass it on the way. There have been many times that I've come close to either hitting or being hit by a high school student behind the wheel of a car - because it is a residential area, I don't think that they pay as close attention to traffic.

My husband won't let her ride the bus either - when he was in school, he was bullied on the bus and he's adament that she not suffer the same as he did.

I drive her to and from school, but it's on the way to work/home (and so is our son's daycare), so the net cost is very minimal in terms of resources used.

[malta blue]

16. We live one house away from the elementary school and the

district suggests she take the bus :wow:

Either that or we walk her....

[hippywife]

18. I would just be happy if

they would bus all of them. The kids that live closer to school either drive themselves or are driven by their parents. If they would bus them all, at least the traffic wouldn't be so heavy and there would be fewer giant SUV's wasting gas. The school bus is the ultimate carpool!

[WolverineDG]

19. I walked to school

practically everyone in my elementary school did. You only got a ride from mom or dad if you were on crutches, had a doctor/dentist appointment, or the weather was really really REALLY crappy (like hurricane force winds, hail, or tornadoes--ok I exaggerate, but my mom was really picky about how bad the weather had to be before she'd drive the one-quarter mile to school & pick us up). Let's just say you KNEW someone in your family had died if mom or dad was there to pick you up from school & none of the reasons above applied.

It was about a quarter mile from my house to the school & many of my friends walked further than that. Those who lived further than 2 miles rode the bus. The only exception was one of my friends whose mom must have thought she was a high kidnapping target or something. They lived one block from school & her mom drove her to & from every freakin' day!

Mom walked with me to & from for the first 2 days of first grade & even though we had to cross a wide busy street that at the time had no traffic light, never walked to school with me again. :wow: She figured I knew the way by then & there were those older kids acting as crossing guards..... :crazy:

After that, I took the bus. So what if the bus for high school left at 7:15 from the elementary school? Woe unto me or my brother if we missed the bus.

So I was floored a few years ago when I saw school busses doing the door-to-door thing. WTF is wrong with dropping kids off at the nearest school & telling them to hoof it? Or once every couple of blocks or so? Jeezus!

dg

[Warpy]

20. Mom works.

It's easier to shove the kid out the car door on the way to work than listen to the crabbing about the walk in bad weather or the bullies on the bus.

I don't think that's as big a concern as the overscheduling of kids into activities every day of the week, allowing them little or no time to hang out in the neighborhood and get into trouble, i.e. be kids. We're ending up with a lot of kids who don't know what to do with time when no adult is around to tell them what to do.

I was a latchkey kid. Today, that would be considered neglect.

[Summer93]

22. Back in the day - I walked

I walked to school all 12 grades, even different schools, towns and states. My son took the bus with 45 minutes one way. He was the last to get off. He was a latch key kid and now his wife drives their child to school each day.

I look back and think how enjoyable it was to walk. I would meet up with friends along the way and talk. It was a very relaxing time for me. I thing it was also good exercise probably 2 miles each way.

We were living in a time that was unmarked by the fear that hinders the current time.

I do remember however that my Dad told us that his workplace was listed as one targeted for "atomic bomb" by Russia. I remember going to the school basement for air raid drills and thinking how futile to even think of surviving an atomic bomb by putting my arms around my neck and crouching.

My younger brother rode his purple fuzzy donkey to the center of town and a police officer gave him a ride home saying that he knew where he lived but, no charges of neglect.

[old mark]

23. I walked to school from 3rd grade

through high school, but I would not want any of my kids to walk in some of those areas today. The old working class neighborhoods have become very high crime areas.

mark

[eilen]

24. I think because the suburbs

have no sidewalks. Where I live we get lots of snow. I walked to school, many blocks and some busy streets with lights, cross walks and crossing guards when I was young and lived in a city residential neighborhood. It snowed more then and not everyone shoveled their walks but still... I think the traffic was not as bad. You can't go too fast in a car when there are stop signs at every corner. In the burb's they don't have as many stop signs and long curvy roads are conducive to Indy 500 aspirants.

[Dervill Crow]

25. Suburbs with no sidewalks and crazy drivers. n/t

[kickysnana]

26. Pedophiles, no sidewalks, asthma...

Also instead of 30 buses showing up you have 500 cars.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. Pedophiles are no more common now than they were then,

no sidewalks is bad planning, and perhaps the kids would have less asthma if there were fewer cars.

[Le Taz Hot]

32. I had/have asthma

and I walked to school, or, when we weren't close to a school, walked to the bus stop from K - 12. Have you seen the elementary school kids lately? The obesity in them is appalling. At this rate they'll be dead of heart attacks by age 50.

[DrDan]

28. I have thought about this recently as well

Is your question related to the budget cuts that seem to be infecting all school districts? It seems we in Central Florida are facing some very serious challenges in school funding.

So why is the school responsible for transportation to the school - except that is the way it has always been.

Why not put the responsibility onto the parents? School budgets could then be focussed on the classrooms.

This makes a lot of sense to me.

[old mark]

31. I took a bus to go to first grade, but we moved to a different city - larger -

and I walked every day from second grade through High School, mostly for several miles each way. I really enjoyed it - loved looking at the old houses and design of the buildings. Found several historical markers and interesting places over the years, and I still love to walk and look at the neighborhoods, although it's a little cold for me at my advanced age. The city where I lived has become a drug dealers heaven though, and I'd really have to be carefull to teach kids about the street dangers etc. Actually, the nearby cith high school where I live now is more dangerous than the streets - there are fights, stabbings, etc nearly every week despite police in the halls.

mark