Let’s Go for a Walk

By Ryan Gray

Wednesday marked National Walk to School Day, an initiative promoted by the National Center for Safe Routes to School. More than 3,000 schools in all 50 states and the District of Columbia participated, and 40 countries including the United States are recognizing October as National Walk to School Month.

The key here is walking “safe.”

Students on the south side of Chicago made headlines last month after a 16-year-old, innocent bystander honor student was killed during a gang fight outside his high school as he walked to the school bus stop. Just this week shows were all over the topic of increases school violence, such as CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 that broadcast this week from the Windy City. Meanwhile, other media outlets have been questioning how safe it is for kids to walk to school, especially as shrinking school budgets and reduced or eliminated bus routes have made this a necessity. Look no further than on the U.S. News & World Report Web site.

Blogger Nancy Shute describes a mile-long walk she, her daughter and another student took this week to the local elementary school. She called it “a glorious way to start the day, far better than the usual rush to the bus stop.”

But, as Shute points out, fewer and fewer kids are walking to and from school compared to years, decades past. That’s the topic of a new book, “Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry,” by Lenore Skenazy, the New York mother who made headlines last year for allowing her then 9-year-old soon to ride the subway and transit bus to school by himself. In a New York Times article last month, she called walking to school a political act. And, indeed it has become that, when you consider the Federal Highway Administration is behind Safe Routes to School.

But it remains controversial, not just with parents due to highly publicized school bus stop abductions, like the whole Jaycee Dugard case of this summer, but also in school district transportation operations. There still are rumblings that this Safe Routes federal program should proves there could be money for school bus transportation, which is the safest way for kids to be driven to and from school. But there’s obviously also the physical fitness standpoint to be considered, as only about 13 percent of kids today walk or bike to school compared to more than 41 percent 40 years ago. The Journal of the American Planning Association recently studied parents in San Francisco who drove their 10- to 14-year olds to school and found that half wouldn’t allow their kids to walk to school without supervision, 30 percent of whom said that fear of strangers guided their decision.

We talked about this before, but this month is as good as any to bring it up once again: schools have the perfect entry point into directing and managing wide scale walking programs, especially as there’s federal money to gain. Increasingly, more and more school district transportation departments getting on board. It’s a way to promote healthier lifestyles in children, and what better way to be environmentally green? Not to say that school buses don’t still have their place in helping kids get in education by providing a ride to and from school, and the same goes for transit when done safely — I seriously question those who think a 9-year-old can be safe on an inner city bus ride, or, as was recently the case in Maryland, a 6-year-old!

But especially in this economic climate, schools need all the resources they can get. And in doing so, the kids can actually stop and smell the roses.

Tell us if your school has a story from National Walk to School Week or has any particular plans for recognizing National Walk to School Month.

Outline of Transportation Bill to be Released

By Ryan Gray

Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), the chair of the House Transportation Committee, will be releasing an outline of the transportation reauthorization bill this week. There could be some good news for the school transportation industry.

With a full draft of the bill expected before the July 4 recess, there is speculation that the $612 million federal Safe Routes to School Program will receive a boost in funding. This spring, the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services worked with the Safe Routes to School National Partnership to include verbiage into recommendations filed with House leaders to appropriate 10 percent of Safe Routes infrastructure funds for increasing school bus stop safety.

Proponents have asked for full funding of the program at $17 billion over the next five years, but likely some kind of compromise with House Republicans will pare down that figure considerably. Despite Safe Routes being a pet project of Rep. Oberstar, Republicans sent a letter to President Obama last month that proposed program cuts deigned to help trim the budget, including a line item to eliminate Safe Routes.

Here's a list of programs school districts that have received funding since the Safe Routes program started in 2005 under the SAFETEA-LU. Has your district looked into similar funding opportunities?