Walking and Biking to School - What happened? What can be done?
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NWHF Staff
| Posted on: September 26th, 2008
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Public Health
These days, a lot of people are pointing out that in 1969 around half of all kids in the US walked or biked to school, while the number now is less than 15 percent.
Congressman Earl Blumenauer even cited the statistic into his National Bike Bill, which he introduced in Congress back in February. More recently, it has been highlighted locally by Kaiser Permanente, the National Center for Safe Routes for School, and the well-intentioned folks promoting International Walk to School Day on October 8, 2008.
And there are plenty more statistics where that one came from. For example, according to the National Center for Safe Routes, as much as 21 percent of morning traffic is generated by parents driving their children to school.
Facts such as these are just another indicator for why today’s generation may be the first to weigh more and have a shorter average lifespan than their parents
So what can be done to reverse this trend? Ensuring safe routes for kids to travel to school will certainly help, but are we kidding ourselves if we think that parents – and kids – choose their cars over their bikes and shoes mostly for reasons of safety?
What about the way our communities are constructed – oftentimes without sidewalks? Or where schools are situated?
Does the time crunch have anything to do with it? Today’s kids seem more pressed for time than ever – as are their parents – and so that extra 30 minutes of sleep may make a difference…even if their health may suffer as a result.
Government and community programs that promote biking are a great start, but it would be as helpful, or even more, if we can really identify the underlying causes to issues such as this and take the appropriate steps to address them one by one – and once and for all.
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Walking and biking will continue be an important part of improvements to child and adolescent health, and must be supported in a coordinated effort by children, families, school staff, legislators, and professionals from disciplines such as urban/transportation planning, public health, and community design, to name but a few. This will help to reverse the frequently mentioned trend of declining trips to school on foot or by bike.
Walking and biking at the school level, rather than being viewed alone, should be incorporated into a larger school health program that addresses healthy eating, health screenings, physical activity and other activities that contribute to improved health. Some schools are already doing this, and Oregon is in the planning stages of a, “healthy schools act” that will address some of these very issues. I think that this is a positive step.
I do not think that we are kidding ourselves when we think that safety is a major concern. Perception of safety plays a huge part in whether someone chooses to engage in an activity such as bicycling. A child, or adult for that matter, should not be expected to ride or walk on streets that present barriers such as heavy traffic, difficult crossings, lack of sidewalks, lack of bicycle facilities, or long distances to school; which speaks to poor school siting. In many ways we have engineered out opportunities for physical activity and exercise at the behest of economic feasibility and moving automobiles from one point to another in the easiest way possible. We are starting to see a reversal in this trend, or at least more people questioning the efficacy of it given our current health problems, be they physical, environmental, or mental. Safe Routes to School is indicative of a positive shift toward viewing the community environment as important to health outcomes. I hope that even more emphasis will be placed on research and implementation of programs that address this relationship across the urban environment.
Walking and biking provide exercise that is easy to obtain and add to a daily routine. We must embolden our communities to allow healthy choices to be easy choices. What is more upstreet, I mean upstream than engineering prevention into the built environment.