Getting to School Shouldn’t Be So Hard

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Walk to School Day
Walk to School Day
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Biking is not encouraged in Saratoga Springs
Biking is not encouraged in Saratoga Springs
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Thurston Middle School, Laguna Beach
Thurston Middle School, Laguna Beach
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John Eaton Elementary, Washington
John Eaton Elementary, Washington
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“People Habitat” by F. Kaid Benfield delves into various aspects of current American cities, finding weak points and setbacks, then gives hope and fresh ideas to remedy them.
“People Habitat” by F. Kaid Benfield delves into various aspects of current American cities, finding weak points and setbacks, then gives hope and fresh ideas to remedy them.

The way our cities and suburbs are structured hampers healthy lifestyles. In People Habitat: 25 Ways to Think About Greener, Healthier Cities (People Habitat Communications, 2014), F. Kaid Benfield outlines aspects of our current environment, infrastructure and culture that we can change to encourage healthier and greener living, while pointing out discrepancies to pay attention to, from the cathartic overuse of “green” to gloss over environmentally destructive products or places to foster walkability. The following excerpt is from Chapter 17, “Getting to School Shouldn’t Be So Hard.”

Getting to School Shouldn’t Be So Hard

When I give talks about the issues in this book, I frequently ask my audience, “How many of you walked or rode a bike to school as a kid?” Hands go up all over the room. Just about everyone aged 40 or older. Then I ask, how many have kids who walk to school now? A few hands go up, generally well under ten percent of the room, even though half or more may have children.

As recently as 1973, some 60 percent of school-age children walked or biked to school. I’m told that, today, the portion is about 13 percent. All this while we have a serious problem with childhood obesity, which has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past 30 years, according to the National Centers for Disease Control. What’s wrong with this picture? Saratoga Springs, in upstate New York, is a relatively affluent small city popular with tourists and known for its historic architecture: the Saratoga Race Course, which has been hosting horse racing since 1863, and Saratoga Spring Water, which has been bottled in the community since 1872. There are mineral springs all over town. Its Performing Arts Center is the summer home of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York City Ballet.

In other words, Saratoga Springs is the kind of old-fashioned place where one might hope to find kids walking or biking to school. Not so, it turns out. A 2009 story initially reported by Andrew J.Bernstein in The Saratogian attracted attention from urbanists allover the country when the Maple Avenue Middle School enforced a policy against riding a bike to school, even on national Bike to Work Day. The fact that the student was riding alongside his mom didn’t seem to matter, according to Bernstein’s article:

  • Published on Feb 10, 2015
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