Advocacy & Safety - Biking, Walking to school illegal in Saratoga Springs, NY

Biking, Walking to school illegal in Saratoga Springs
http://fullyarticulated.typepad.com/sprawledout/2009/07/switchboard-from-nrdc-kaid-benfields-blog-biking-walking-to-school-illegal-in-saratoga-springs.html

Amazingly, Saratoga Springs was cited only a week ago in Business Week, in an article titled "Livable Saratoga," to illustrate places "with a small-town feel where you can walk to work and shopping." But not, apparently, to school.

The ironies to this story are many. To begin with, there is clearly a crosswalk in front of the school that appears to connect to a well used path. Whether a cross-walk on a two lane country road without a traffic light or a stop sign is an invitation to frogger is an open question. Secondly, Kaid Benfield of the Natural Resources Defense Council notes that Saratoga Springs was commended only a week ago by Business Week for being an "anti-suburbia" where "you can walk to work and shopping".

In a greater irony Saratoga Springs is, of course, the chosen home of anti-sprawl post-peak oil zealot James Howard Kunstler. .... Kunstler has yet to acknowledge the story brewing in his own backyard.

Sounds like the school wants to keep the kids fat and happy ...... or maybe just fat.

I wouldn't blame Kunstler for this, I'm sure they don't listen to him there either. He's too scary for me, and I'm always having post-societal-breakdown panic attacks on my own.

Transporting kids is a highly subsidised business. Each kid is money.

School systems stress uniformity.

School is run for the convenience and enrichment of the adults that work there, or have retired from working there.

So what happens if a kid walks? I am guessing there is a limit to the severity of the punishment. Seriously what happens?

What if the kid has a doctors note? Little Jimmy is fat and needs to ride his bike. The other kids on the bus bring twinkies.

It's good to be overweight by banning anyone from walking or biking... ;)

I missed how it's illegal, looks just against school policy to me. I say F em and ride or walk anyways. Kid would have to park his bike outside school, though.

School is run for the convenience and enrichment of the adults that work there, or have retired from working there.

.

Working at a school as a volunteer, I find this statement to be absolutley true.

The children and education are not a concern. As far as teachers and administrators are concerned the school, and the children along with it, exist only to give them a job and retirment.

how far are kids allowed to walk to the bus stop?

Here's an example where giving the local newspapers a heads-up will probably change things in a hurry. I seriously doubt the school wants to have bad press due to such an idiotic policy.

****. This country is becoming a nation of sissies. Pansy ass ******* that are too scared to set foot outside their doors without a deadly weapon in their control. Scared, whiny *****es.

Let's put foam on everything! (http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2009/05/23/news/doc4a176696ca884152592474.txt)


Student’s bike ride earns punishment
Published: Saturday, May 23, 2009
By ANDREW J. BERNSTEIN, The Saratogian

SARATOGA SPRINGS — While hundreds of area workers pedaled their way to work last Friday as participants in the national Bike to Work Day, one woman and her son were scolded for breaking the rules.

Janette Kaddo Marino and her son, Adam, 12, wanted to participate in the commuting event, so the two set off to Maple Avenue Middle School on bicycles May 15. The two pedaled the 7 miles from their east side home, riding along a path that extends north from North Broadway straight onto school property.

After they arrived, mother and son were approached first by school security and then school administrators, who informed Marino that students are not permitted to ride their bikes to school.

“Unbeknownst to us there is a policy,” she said, “but it wasn’t in any of the brochures given to us.”

School officials took her son’s bike and stored it in the boiler room. They told her she would have to return with a car to retrieve the bike later in the day.

For Marino and her family, which recently pedaled from Buffalo to Albany along the Erie Canal trail way, the policy is at odds with other attitudes in the city.

“What I’m looking for, at least for right now, is that a child accompanied by an adult could ride their bike to Maple Ave. (Middle School),” she said. “Hopefully they will create a better scenario for kids to walk and bike.”

The school’s reason for the no-biking policy is primarily one of safety, Principal Stuart Byrne said.

“I would be a nervous wreck every day if kids were riding to school,” he said. “Traffic isn’t bumper to bumper, but it’s non-stop. My personal hunch is that a sheriff or a state trooper could make a living out here.” He said the district’s policy does not allow students to ride or walk to schools outside of the city’s urban core.

While traffic is one concern, Byrne said he also worries about children traveling unsupervised through the community. He noted that students are under school supervision until they are dropped off by the bus or picked up at the end of the day.

“If you look at the North Broadway route that the parent used that day: (Even if) there were going to be some exceptions or monitoring (to allow riding to school), you’re still going into a substantially wooded area,” he said. “I don’t know how you say to the community at large that is a safe area.”

He noted that, as in any other community, Saratoga Springs has its share of individuals who have served criminal sentences for abusing children. He pointed out an incident several years ago where John Regan attempted to abduct a student at Saratoga Springs High School.

“It’s that one-time occurrence that will have everyone wringing their hands,” Byrne said. “I’m a little conservative on this one. If anything happened, it would weigh on me for the rest of my life.”

Superintendent Janice White did not return calls requesting comment. However, Marino said he had a conversation with White, who said the district would consider the policy.

While the community will have to consider security issues, there are other means to address traffic safety.

The New York State Department of Transportation manages a program called Safe Routes to School, which awards grant funding to school districts looking to improve pedestrian and bicycle access to schools.

The program encourages kids to walk or bike to school, said Raj Malhotra, program coordinator for the Capital Region NYS DOT. “Obesity is a big problem among children. It’s an alternative transportation. It reduces pollution, saves money and improves the children’s health,” he said.

This year the DOT awarded $2 million in grant funds for transportation projects through the Safe Routes program, mostly to construct sidewalks, Malhotra said.

Any school district can apply for funds, but Malhotra said Saratoga Springs had not.

“I personally encouraged them to apply, but I was told that the school board policy considered it unsafe to walk or bike, and the policy is only to bus (kids to and from school),” he said.

Malhotra said a key to changing the attitude is to reach out to members of the school board.

“This could happen; they should be ready to ask for funding in the next round. Our program is around for anyone who needs it,” he said.

Another project that aims to improve transportation to and from a school is the Geyser Road Trail.

Saratoga County Supervisor Matthew Veitch, an advocate of the trail, said the planned path will run down the north side of Geyser Road.

Veitch said the trail is mostly funded through private donations, as well as a member item from Assemblyman Jim Tedisco. When completed, the trail will run from the Milton town line and connect with Rail Road Run.

In the meantime, parents and students should be aware that riding to some city schools is not an option under existing rules, at least for the time being. Still, Marino said she didn’t feel it was the school’s place to tell her how to bring her child to school.

“I did feel like my rights as a parent were being jeopardized or questioned. Other parents drive their kids to school, so I should be able to ride my child to school,” she said.

School officials took her son’s bike and stored it in the boiler room. They told her she would have to return with a car to retrieve the bike later in the day

Whoa.. so they pretty much stole the kid's bike.

Boiler room? So that the bicycle can be melted? :wtf: :roflmao2: :D

:popcorn:

Get a tandem. Ride to school with the child on the back. Ride home without child. Ride back to pick up child. Repeat until policy changes or until school gets tired of telling you that you are not allowed. What if the child lived across the street from the school? Would the child not be allowed to walk? What...too much traffic (from all of the other kids parents dropping off their little munchkins) making it too dangerous to walk?

Get a tandem. Ride to school with the child on the back. Ride home without child. Ride back to pick up child. Repeat until policy changes or until school gets tired of telling you that you are not allowed. What if the child lived across the street from the school? Would the child not be allowed to walk? What...too much traffic (from all of the other kids parents dropping off their little munchkins) making it too dangerous to walk?

Ride to school with the child. Ride home. Ride to school to pick up the child. Call the cops because of bike theft. Ride home. Repeat until the unwritten policy changes.

Ok, so this story has gotten some press which is good. It's well known that people often have a distorted and irrational sense of risk. For instance, yes there are child abductions, but those are rare events. Yes, there are bike crashes, but again those are rare events. Compare that to the phenomenon of fat kids, where fat kills, but not dramatically.

On a purely more practical level, how can one justify spending "safe routes to school" funds while not permitting the routes to be used?

On a purely more practical level, how can one justify spending "safe routes to school" funds while not permitting the routes to be used?

That makes them even safer. ;)

The constituency that forces kids to be bussed to school is the same do-gooder constituency that favors bus transit everywhere, with the exception (to the poor kids loss) that they can be compelled to ride on the busses. That, plus the feminazi hsyteria about child ******* and abducters on every corner, means that very few kids, if any, walk to school these days.

It wouldn't always be practicable, but in the 1950s and 1960s if you lived within 1 1/2 miles of high school you had to walk. What busses should do for kids beyond this is bus them to a rendezvous point (there could be several) which is 1 1/2 miles away, and let the little muthaphukas walk the rest of the way. Dozens of pounds would be lost; kids wouldn't be carrying 45 pound backpacks to school that needed to be metal detected on the way in, and they'd be all winded out from their walk when they got to homeroom.

Paradise.

roughstuff

Where I grew up (Western New England) if home was less than 1.5mi from school or bus route you walked. If the bus route was further than 1.5mi from your house it was adjusted/extended. I lived almost exactly 1.5mi from the bus route so got in 3mi a day walking.

this is my high school (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=6100+mason+montgomery+rd,+mason,+oh&sll=39.354609,-84.310198&sspn=0.029069,0.077162&ie=UTF8&ll=39.353779,-84.307194&spn=0.014535,0.038581&t=h&z=15). I estimate about 20 people walked to school, and 5 people biked (in the summer). About 1300 drove, and the remainder (1700 or so) took the bus or got rides from parents or friends.

Whoa.. so they pretty much stole the kid's bike.

No, she was told that she would have to return later in the day with her car and take the bike home.

Boiler room? So that the bicycle can be melted? :wtf: :roflmao2: :D

:popcorn:

Uh, IF it's hot enough in the boiler room to "melt" a bicycle what is it doing to the students, faculty and staff, as well as the equipment?

Ride to school with the child. Ride home. Ride to school to pick up the child. Call the cops because of bike theft. Ride home. Repeat until the unwritten policy changes.

Are you sure that it's an unwritten policy?

<Snip>

On a purely more practical level, how can one justify spending "safe routes to school" funds while not permitting the routes to be used?

That's a good question.

No, she was told that she would have to return later in the day with her car and take the bike home.

If someone takes something from me, then says. "i'm not giving this back until you do something for me".. i'd consider that theft.

My local elementary school proudly holds periodic "walk to school" days. I live within 1/2 km of the school, and my kids always walked or biked, long before our street was designated a "safe route to school."

This is not as uncommon as you think. In the Dakota Valley School District, which serves Dakota Dunes, North Sioux City, Wynstone Development, South Dakota and the rural homes between there and Jefferson, South Dakota has outlawed kids walking or biking to school. There is a very nice MUP going right in front of the school. I have it on good authority from the superintendant that he would love to invest the $50,000 a year it costs to bus the kids who could otherwise walk or ride bike in something more worth while. The school district literally has door to door bus service. Some of the kids who are bussed live less then a mile away and several are literally blocks away with a few who are only 1 to 2 blocks away. Yes they are picked up and dropped off by the bus.

Where I grew up (Western New England) if home was less than 1.5mi from school or bus route you walked. If the bus route was further than 1.5mi from your house it was adjusted/extended. I lived almost exactly 1.5mi from the bus route so got in 3mi a day walking.

Sounds like my junior high days, I lived a half block inside the school bus dividing line making me ineligible to ride the bus.
Making walking and bicycling to school illegal would have been considered ludicrous in the early days of the President's Council on Physical Fitness, back when I was pounding/burning up the pavement walking or biking to school.
My parents would give me rides to/from school in the car on rare occasions, and I considered it a treat rather than their obligation.
The kids that I considered overweight in my youth, pale in comparison to what I see today.

He's too scary for me, and I'm always having post-societal-breakdown panic attacks on my own.

He's actually pretty pragmatic.
And the picture he paints "World made by hand" doesn't sound half bad to me.

No, she was told that she would have to return later in the day with her car and take the bike home.

If someone took your bike and then told you what to do to get it back, do you really think that's acceptable?

In Alief Independent School District in Houston, TX children may not ride the bus if they live within 2 miles of their school. Many do walk, almost none ride bikes, and there are huge parental traffic jams at every school.

I'm sorry, but where is the data showing bike riding and walking is more dangerous then bus riding and automotive use? My school district had 6 kids die going in school related transportation in 2006 in cars, but none on bike or on foot. This is bull crap. You Yankees are supposed to be more enlightened then us ignorant Southerners.

I'm sorry, but where is the data showing bike riding and walking is more dangerous then bus riding and automotive use? My school district had 6 kids die going in school related transportation in 2006 in cars, but none on bike or on foot. This is bull crap. You Yankees are supposed to be more enlightened then us ignorant Southerners.

My guess is that there is no hard data one way or another. Although, interestingly, this might be a case where the relative crash risks CAN be studied quite easily. The problem with saying that there were 6 kids killed in car crashes, but 0 in bike crashes, is that the numbers aren't normalized to the number of kids who did it. So if there were say 100X the number of kids who rode in cars, the 6-0 figure might not be indicative of much.

The problem can be studied more easily by having kids fill out a form noting their form of transport, and then watching over a year to see what number of crashes to/from school occur in each mode, and the damages done, and the distances travelled. Come to think of it, maybe this scheme would be the scheme to measure relative crash risk of bike vs car, with perhaps expansion to large employers and the like.

My guess is that there is no hard data one way or another. Although, interestingly, this might be a case where the relative crash risks CAN be studied quite easily. The problem with saying that there were 6 kids killed in car crashes, but 0 in bike crashes, is that the numbers aren't normalized to the number of kids who did it. So if there were say 100X the number of kids who rode in cars, the 6-0 figure might not be indicative of much.

The problem can be studied more easily by having kids fill out a form noting their form of transport, and then watching over a year to see what number of crashes to/from school occur in each mode, and the damages done, and the distances travelled. Come to think of it, maybe this scheme would be the scheme to measure relative crash risk of bike vs car, with perhaps expansion to large employers and the like.

The bolded phrases are essential metrics so often ignored by those who glibly talk about determining risk/danger levels soley from counting total number of "crashes" without any consideration of the damage severity or exposure probabilities.

Working at a school as a volunteer, I find this statement to be absolutley true.

The children and education are not a concern. As far as teachers and administrators are concerned the school, and the children along with it, exist only to give them a job and retirment.

The trick is getting in on the action..... I have friends who are dedicated teachers and can't get a permanent full time position to save their lives.

This is not as uncommon as you think. In the Dakota Valley School District, which serves Dakota Dunes, North Sioux City, Wynstone Development, South Dakota and the rural homes between there and Jefferson, South Dakota has outlawed kids walking or biking to school. There is a very nice MUP going right in front of the school. I have it on good authority from the superintendent that he would love to invest the $50,000 a year it costs to bus the kids who could otherwise walk or ride bike in something more worth while. The school district literally has door to door bus service. Some of the kids who are bussed live less then a mile away and several are literally blocks away with a few who are only 1 to 2 blocks away. Yes they are picked up and dropped off by the bus.

That's just asinine. Did he tell you the "logic" behind not allowing children to walk to school? When I was in elementary school and a member of the church choir we would walk from school to the church. When I relocated to Florida from NY and was redoing my senior year there were a LOT of us who walked and/or rode bikes to school.

I'm sorry, but where is the data showing bike riding and walking is more dangerous then bus riding and automotive use? My school district had 6 kids die going in school related transportation in 2006 in cars, but none on bike or on foot. This is bull crap. You Yankees are supposed to be more enlightened then us ignorant Southerners.

6 kids dieing going to school??!!
My gawd what the hell is going on around there?


At my elementary school of about 350 students, probably 60% of us rode bikes. We had huge bike racks around two sides of the school.

I'm sorry, but where is the data showing bike riding and walking is more dangerous then bus riding and automotive use? My school district had 6 kids die going in school related transportation in 2006 in cars, but none on bike or on foot. This is bull crap. You Yankees are supposed to be more enlightened then us ignorant Southerners.

You are being naive. Public school decisions are made to accommodate adults. My guess is that somewhere there is a per child subsidy. They want to collect the subsidy.

I doubt anyone would, but if you challenged them in court I bet they would have to allow you to attend class if you did not take the bus.

Working at a school as a volunteer, I find this statement to be absolutley true.

The children and education are not a concern. As far as teachers and administrators are concerned the school, and the children along with it, exist only to give them a job and retirment.

How's that for a crazy generalization? :twitchy:

As someone currently doing IT work for an elementary school, I can tell you that 90% of the teachers I work with care about their students' education to the point of obsession. There's constant talk about the kids' progress during lunch breaks, teachers in different grade levels going back and forth about which classroom Little Johnny should be placed in next year (should he be put with our best math teacher, or our top reading instructor, or...?). There are at least two teachers at the school who paid more than $5,000 of their own money last year to fund educational field trips that the kids otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford. All this dedication to the kids, even from those teachers who had already been told that they won't have a job next year due to drastic budget cuts in our district.

I suspect that if you didn't see everything through the confirmation-bias lens of your frequently expressed political dogma (an important component of which seems to be the fervent belief that in all cases, "gubmint = bad") you would see beyond the few bad apples at the school you volunteer in, and marvel at the extent to which so many teachers really do give a damn. On the other hand, maybe your local school district has serious culture problems. But either way, it's absurd to try to extrapolate from that experience to insist that all teachers, everywhere, care nothing for their kids.

(And for what it's worth, our kids are allowed to bike to school. We even gave away four teacher-donated bicycles last year to the top students in our Reading Counts program.)

Did he tell you the "logic" behind not allowing children to walk to school?

Kidnapping, sexual assault, drug dealers, mean dogs, inadequate pedestrian facilities, lawyers, etc, etc. I once lived 2.5 blocks from school and was required to ride the school bus for a half hour to get there, and that was in the kinder gentler old days.

How about cars slow down to 20mph in school zone?

How about cars slow down so you don't run over your kids' friends?

Misleading hysterics in the posted blog. Did Saratoga Springs pass an ordinance outlawing riding a bike to school? One would think so from the title of the blog post, when in fact, one school's policy prohibits students from riding to school.

One afternoon last year I was driving by a school when the buses were leaving. After waiting for a school bus to cross to the road opposite the school, the traffic warden waved me on to make my turn, following the bus. The bus went about 100 yards to the entrance of a townhouse community, stopped and let off about a half dozen kids. It then went another 100 yards to the next entrance and did the same. Then a couple of hundred yards and did the same again. At the next traffic light the bus turned right, heading back towards the school. By then the bus looked pretty empty. In effect, it went around the block across from the school.

I grew up in the 60's, truly another time. Kids walked or biked to school. The only time parents would pick you up, is if you were leaving to head off to a family vacation, or something.

I find this all very bizarre. I'll bet the kids know exactly where the nearest McDonalds is, don't they?

Misleading hysterics in the posted blog. Did Saratoga Springs pass an ordinance outlawing riding a bike to school? One would think so from the title of the blog post, when in fact, one school's policy prohibits students from riding to school.

True enough, but for students at that school, the net result is the same. The affected parents need to complain to the school board, rather than the city council.

It's school policy. Given that, it may be something that's required by an insurance carrier, or perhaps is just intended to limit liability. The only way to know why it's school policy would be to ask the school why walking and biking to school is against school policy.


True enough, but for students at that school, the net result is the same. The affected parents need to complain to the school board, rather than the city council.Yep.

I second the "let's grab all the bus subsidy we can" idea. The article is ridiculous fear mongering.
Forget changing policy at this point , how about a forensic audit of what happens to that 50K he mentioned in the article?

So if the school does not permit its students to ride bikes or walk to or from the school, is there still a school speed zone on the street in front of the school? There certainly doesn't need to be since all the precious little babies are safely tucked away in busses and minivans.

Misleading hysterics in the posted blog. Did Saratoga Springs pass an ordinance outlawing riding a bike to school? One would think so from the title of the blog post, when in fact, one school's policy prohibits students from riding to school.

Kind of amazing that one bureaucrat could wussify an entire school, and not be held to account in any way.

I would like to know what they can actually do to stop you. Mom rides with little Johny to school, say on an Xtracycle with tray bien.When they get to school, Johny hops off, Mom fits bike onto tray bien and rides home. Reverse at 3pm or whenever.

What control does a school have on what goes on outside the gates?

P.S. Tray bien is a mod to a long tail to permit carrying another bike as cargo.