Living Car Free - Continuing the bicycle tradition

Yesterday, I was at an elementary school to get a picture of a speaker talking to Grade 3 students about bike safety. Around here, the Grade 3 students are taught about bicycling as part of the school curriculum.

The student bike racks at the school had just 12 bicycles and one scooter.

The school has an enrollment of 380.

Now that I think about it, I don't see a lot of kids out on their bikes these days. Sure, there are some, but not n the numbers I saw a decade or two earlier.

This leaves me with two questions. First, if so few students come to school by bike, are we about to witness the demise of transportation cycling in the near future? And second, is there any point in teaching about bicycling when it is much less a part of children's lives today than in the past?

Maybe it's just too dang cold up there in Canada during the school year for 3rd graders to be riding to and from school. Just a thought.

When I was growing up, in a much colder part of Canada, the bikes would be on the roads as soon as the snow was off.

I don't know if it's a cause or an effect, but there are twice as many cars on the roads today than when I was a kid in the 1960s. Also, schools tend to be farther apart in our sprawled out age.

What tradition?

Seriously. That's about the same size as the elementary school and middle school I attended. In a typical homeroom, less than 10% of the students walked to school. PA law requires schools to provide *all* students with a bus option if they live more than 3 miles from their school, and school districts at the time were not permitted to bus students who lived within the 3 mile radius. So that gives you a pretty good idea of how few students could live close enough to school to walk.

In my case, the issue wasn't that school was too far out in the boonies either. It was just outside of downtown. But downtown houses would run easily $300k back in the mid 1980s... so only the very wealthiest families could afford to live there.

When I was in elementary school in the 1970s, the farm kids came by bus and the town kids walked or rode their bikes. The only time a parent would drop a kid off at school was if that kid had been at a doctor's appointment and was coming in late. Today, in many cases, parents are driving the kids to school, and that's completely changing the dynamic.

When I went to school in Canada in the 1960s, almost everyone walked to school. A few kids -- less than 5 -- had cars. No one got rides from Mom or Dad [that would have been grounds for ridicule...]

OTOH, I was pulling off the bike trail this afternoon and saw what looked a commuter riding his shiny new bike and carrying a rather full backpack. Then I realized it was a 12 year old probably heading home from school or tuba lessons.

There still is hope for the future.

This leaves me with two questions. First, if so few students come to school by bike, are we about to witness the demise of transportation cycling in the near future? And second, is there any point in teaching about bicycling when it is much less a part of children's lives today than in the past?

Cycling for transportation is only practiced by adults and no longer by children. I suspect the future will be determined more by the price of gas than anything else. Once we pass the $4.00 dollar a gallon mark, you'll start seeing more transportation cyclists back on the street.

I think it would be a waste of time teaching children if the school is situated in a subdivision surrounded by high speed roads. I think it would be far more beneficial to teach the unemployed, underemployed the power of utility cycling as a cost saving solution.

Cycling for transportation is only practiced by adults and no longer by children.
Don't be so sure of yourself, Mr. Provincial. The "tradition" lives. This middle school is a mile from my house and has an enrollment of about 350 5-8th graders.

Replacing stolen bicycles is expensive and kids have their bicycles stolen a lot. :)

I read that 1 in 5 vehicles in the morning rush-hour is dropping somebody off at school, that is a lot of traffic!

Don't be so sure of yourself, Mr. Provincial. The "tradition" lives. This middle school is a mile from my house and has an enrollment of about 350 5-8th graders.

Wow... that's pretty good for a school with 350 students. Looks like maybe 40-50 bikes, so about 1 in 8 bike to school? That would be fantastic.

Quite often in Iowa they build schools -- especially high schools -- to serve 2 or 3 towns. They then stick the school half-way between towns, so no one can walk or ride to school. This school is lucky if it serves only neighborhood children.

Wow... that's pretty good for a school with 350 students. Looks like maybe 40-50 bikes, so about 1 in 8 bike to school? That would be fantastic.

Quite often in Iowa they build schools -- especially high schools -- to serve 2 or 3 towns. They then stick the school half-way between towns, so no one can walk or ride to school. This school is lucky if it serves only neighborhood children.

Same in Michigan, and even larger towns are building their schools out in the boonies because the land is cheaper. The parents are evidently too dumb to realize that in order to keep school taxes low, they end up paying a lot more to either buy their kid a car or drive them to and from school every day.

Cycling for transportation is only practiced by adults and no longer by children. I suspect the future will be determined more by the price of gas than anything else. Once we pass the $4.00 dollar a gallon mark, you'll start seeing more transportation cyclists back on the street.

I think it would be a waste of time teaching children if the school is situated in a subdivision surrounded by high speed roads. I think it would be far more beneficial to teach the unemployed, underemployed the power of utility cycling as a cost saving solution.


Actually, in the greater Los Angeles area, you have to wait until they grow up for an answer. I noticed that the schoolchildren here do not cycle as the rule. Mostly, they jam the public transit city and county buses and don't like to move too much (i.e. plop their butts on the first seat in the front of the bus). When they reach adulthood and cannot afford the car or even bus/train fares anymore or simply become too fat (and mom & dad is no longer responsible for their safety), they begin to cycle everywhere. By then, they do not know much more than how to balance on the bike & endanger themselves and others riding on the sidewalk very fast, flying down the wheelchair access driveways to the street without looking at oncoming traffic, or jamming up whatever posts to lock up the bike (and face vandals, theft, or ire of passer-bys). Whatever the case may be, sometimes I wish they go back to their cars-or at least mommy & daddy-and leave the streets to the very few, more sane cyclists that once populated the cycling commuter population around here.

The parents are evidently too dumb to realize that in order to keep school taxes low, they end up paying a lot more to either buy their kid a car or drive them to and from school every day.

In many cases they realize what it's going to cost, but somehow feel powerless to deal with it. In most cases, the benefit of a bigger school is marginal and parents think a smaller school will provide more attention for their student. Also for the school district itself, benefit of the cheap land is soon lost to the school bus expense. Parents just need to get organized.

As a mom of elementary school aged children, I'm going to give some credit to the fear-driven media. We (as parents) have been trained to be terrified of strangers giving our children anything more than a passing glance. This is (IMO) a major contributing factor to the childhood obesity issue. Parents are scared that if they let their child out of their sight (forget out of the house) they will simply vanish. Fear is getting in the way living.

In some circles I'm even questioned as to why I'm willing to subject my children to the "goings-on" on the school bus. I usually respond that dealing with obnoxious people is an important lifelong skill that cannot be honed by watching SpongeBob from the back seat of an SUV. Reactions vary.

OK - that was my 2 cents. I'll go dig in the couch to see if I can find more.

As a mom of elementary school aged children, I'm going to give some credit to the fear-driven media. We (as parents) have been trained to be terrified of strangers giving our children anything more than a passing glance. This is (IMO) a major contributing factor to the childhood obesity issue. Parents are scared that if they let their child out of their sight (forget out of the house) they will simply vanish. Fear is getting in the way living.

In some circles I'm even questioned as to why I'm willing to subject my children to the "goings-on" on the school bus. I usually respond that dealing with obnoxious people is an important lifelong skill that cannot be honed by watching SpongeBob from the back seat of an SUV. Reactions vary.

OK - that was my 2 cents. I'll go dig in the couch to see if I can find more.

That's a good point and you hit on a growing movement to start giving kids a little more freedom and responsibility. The media has a lot to do with the fears that parents have about their kids. According to objective statistics, crime rates involving children being hurt have declined over the last several decades, but each case is blown up all over the media.

BTW, welcome to the forum, crazytx mom! I dig the way you make a good point in a humorous and clearly written manner. :)

As a mom of elementary school aged children, I'm going to give some credit to the fear-driven media. We (as parents) have been trained to be terrified of strangers giving our children anything more than a passing glance. This is (IMO) a major contributing factor to the childhood obesity issue. Parents are scared that if they let their child out of their sight (forget out of the house) they will simply vanish. Fear is getting in the way living.

In some circles I'm even questioned as to why I'm willing to subject my children to the "goings-on" on the school bus. I usually respond that dealing with obnoxious people is an important lifelong skill that cannot be honed by watching SpongeBob from the back seat of an SUV. Reactions vary.

OK - that was my 2 cents. I'll go dig in the couch to see if I can find more.


I believe it is now called Free Range Kids (http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/)...that is the way I grew up and pretty much allowed my two to grow up.

Aaron :)

When I was attending grade school in the late 70s to 80s I recall only a handful of kids riding their bikes to school. Although most of the kids lived around the corner from school because most public elementary schools in Toronto tended to be fairly strict local area schools. When I switched to Catholic school, the areas were larger and a number of kids were bused in from the surrounding neighbourhoods (although truth be told, the distances were still walkable but involved crossing rather busy intersections).

Most of the kids who rode their bikes tended to be older, like in grades 6, 7 or 8 and were probably allowed to play further from home than the younger kids. I either walked if I lived nearby or took the city bus when I was going to Catholic school but would have preferred to walk most days.

Now a days, I rarely see the younger kids walking to school on their own but even that wasn't unusual 30 years ago. Nearly all of the junior kids walked with parents or older siblings to school or home. But I do see plenty of kids on bikes leaving the schools located off the MUP nearby. I think there is a high school and a couple of grade schools as well as a private school on that stretch and it's pretty popular before and after school with both cyclists and walkers.

I guess it would depend on the location of the school. I would worry if my younger school aged kids (ok, I don't have any) had to deal with busy streets to travel to school but less so for a kid in junior high or high school.

I was back at the same school yesterday, covering another event. This time there were more bikes out there. Part of this could have been because there was a health fair going on that day. One of the sessions was on bike skills.

The way I see it, the kids are learning what they need to know about cycling. The skills are not being forgotten. But some of the kids may think of cycling as something strictly recreational instead of a cool way of getting around.

I think where Americans really get lost to the idea of cycling for transportation isn't grade school, it's high school where our closest thing to a "Rite of Passage" is the first car when we're sixteen. The pervading attitude when I was a teen, the economy was good and gas was really cheap was that riding bicycles was for losers and DUIs. Now, the economy isn't so great, (so less teens are being gifted their own cars,) gas certainly isn't as cheap, and no matter what your personal opinion on it, the "Green Movement" is as close to mainstream as it's like to get, and it has been embraced finally by free markets.

So proposing someone had a bicycle as their main forms of transportation isn't total crazy talk like it may have once been considered, even for a teenager.

I think where Americans really get lost to the idea of cycling for transportation isn't grade school, it's high school where our closest thing to a "Rite of Passage" is the first car when we're sixteen. The pervading attitude when I was a teen, the economy was good and gas was really cheap was that riding bicycles was for losers and DUIs. Now, the economy isn't so great, (so less teens are being gifted their own cars,) gas certainly isn't as cheap, and no matter what your personal opinion on it, the "Green Movement" is as close to mainstream as it's like to get, and it has been embraced finally by free markets.

So proposing someone had a bicycle as their main forms of transportation isn't total crazy talk like it may have once been considered, even for a teenager.

True, now high school kids do have role models like recent college grads who choose to live in city centers and depend on bikes, walking and public transit for at least some of their transportation.

Here's my plan:

Have the kids on their bikes all the time, in traffic, so that by the time it's time to get their license :eek: they'll have that intimate familiarity of the road and their vulnerable place in the food chain that long-time bicycle commuters have. That way I'll avoid the "reckless kids in the car" syndrome, I hope.

Or, some of them will die and I'll pay less auto insurance. Win-win!