Interesting Utility Mom's observed
 

On my commute I see two Mom's getting kids to school.....which is part of my definition of utiliyt

One has 2 little ones in a baksfiet and 2 riding their own bikes.

The other has one or two little ones in a trailer and one riding his own bike. Interestingly, I saw this mom going to the school for afternoon pickup, riding along, on hand on her handle bar and the other on her son's handlebar.....sans son...just ferrying the bike to school.

I'am seeing more kids on bikes going to school (course the weather has been nice!) but overall it seems to be on an upswing here

They do that quite a bit in NL and DK. I would suggest a handle on the rear of the bike for the littlest ones to keep them under control;) First time I ever saw that in a video from Copenhagen I thought it was a great idea. Stuck a broom handle along the back of the seat tube on my niece's bike to help her along with riding. Now she can handle it very well on her own.:thumb:

Aaron:)

We don't see too many kids riding to school here.

Several of the elementary and middle schools are perched up on the hillsides, with the access roads far to steep for children to ride up. The high schools' catchment areas are too large for many of them to make cycling practical, even if they weren't either located on roads too heavily-automobile-trafficed to make cycling safe, or (in the case of at least one) up on top of a mountain.

A couple of the schools down 'in the flats' have bike racks, but they aren't that much used. There isn't a districtwide policy against it, but it is certainly not encouraged.

When I lived in Charlotte, NC, I taught in the public schools, and there was a district policy forbidding cycling to school.

That is just sad in my mind. i know there are safety and liability concerns....which is sadder

It is pretty flat here and the weather is good and over all pretty bike friendly....many bike lanes, etc overall my impression is that there are more kids biking to school than a few years ago (at least on my commute route)

That's terrible. When was that? I was in Charlotte public schools (Olympic) for a semester in 88, I believe. I'm pretty sure I biked to school a few times then. I would say that the reason I ride as much as I do today is because biking to school was always more pleasant than riding the bus. Five miles to school and back whenever the weather was nice is what taught me that my bike was a viable form of transportation. Too bad they discourage that some places.

This policy was in place in the 1990s. I'm not sure when it was instituted.

Apparently, the no-bike policy is no longer in effect. The Charlotte school district web site has a link to its curriculum, which includes bicycle safety in the primary grades, and their yearly report for 2007 includes a passage about middle school students who ride to school not using helmets 69% of the time.

(Yes, I was that bored.)

By the way, I teach middle school myself, and when I ask my students why so few of them ride bikes to school, they usually respond that bikes just aren't that cool. When pressed for specifics, they usually narrow it down to helmets. They think the helmets make them look stupid, and some of the kids don't want to mess up their hair. If they didn't have to wear helmets, they'd be more inclined to ride to school once in a while.