Walk to School

Group working draft . . . in-process

Notice concerning this working draft and invitation to participate:
 This wonderful Earth Car Free Day activity is presented here both as a great thing to do hand in hand with your family and neighbors on the Day, but also as an example of a "planning kit" of the sort that we intend to bring on line for a number of the kinds of things that an individual citizen or local group can do to participate. What you see here thus far should be considered as an incomplete, in-process group brainstorm. It represents a quick first stab at the dossier which we hope to complete and improve in the coming weeks with the help of some of those fine groups and people with particular expertise and backgrounds in this area (see below for more on that).

Here is something concrete and for many of us quite do-able that we can organize with our own family, neighbors and schools to celebrate Earth Car Free Day. When we say "walk" of course we also mean running, biking, skating or anything that does not involve a motor, fuel and a large and potentially dangerous vehicle.

Why Bother?

Why make such a big deal about something that may appear to be so minor, so trivial, as how our or someone's kids may or may not make their way to school? Well, if they're yours and this is something that you have to think about and act on every day (and perhaps not always quite as well as you might like), you doubtless already have some developed thoughts on this. But for the less initiated, by way of quick intro and first reminder, it may be useful to quote the reasons that the California Department of Health Services cites for its involvement in this area:

"Our goal is to get more children traveling safely to school on foot or bike, with greater frequency. Safe routes to schools offer a full range of benefits, including: reducing children’s risk of injury and chronic disease, improving their awareness of their neighborhood, and improving the community environment – air quality, traffic congestion and other quality-of-life factors."

There are more reasons than that,however, and you will find them abundantly documented on the Walk to School sites indicated here. Two of our favorites include (a) that, by taking charge of their own daily trip children gain in autonomy and responsibility (as opposed to the abject passivity of being bundled and delivered in a rolling cocoon), and (b) that the trip when made in the company of others provides an important "warm up" and "warm down" period of exercise and socialization which helps makes more sense out of school itself. But once you have had a good look at how this works in practice, you will see that there is a lot more to it than that.

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Plenty of Great Help Available

As luck would have it there is already a well developed background of thinking and practice along these lines, and we can if we wish in this case make good use of it for our own personal Walk to School Day. To do this, you can get off to a great start by having a good look at the official web site of the International Walk to School Day Program. And if you need any convincing as to whether or not this might be a worthy idea, check out the KidsWalk-to-School brochure (a small, 73K PDF file) of the cooperating of KidsWalk-to-School program. You will also find valuable information on the Development of Safe Walking and Biking Strategies on the excellent Canadian Way to Go! program site.

If you feel some hesitation on this, which is certainly understandable given the dangers that our modern society all too often poses, we can suggest by way of useful background reading an article by one of the most thoughtful experts on the subject, Mayer Hillman, entitled "Curbing children's social and emotional development: an unrecognized outcome of parental fears".

Another useful thing that you can do for your family and others is to take a walk with your children and run the Walkability Checklist that has been developed in conjunction with the US National Child Passenger Safety Week program.

Here's an idea to make even better use of your list:
You can communicate it to your neighbors and when a group of you have run it independently make the results known to your local government and to the media on Earth Walk to School Day. For our part, we can create a world map with the possibility to click on the walkablity indexes of specific places that have made them available to us.
And here are a few more useful resources to help you in your organization:

  • California Walk a Child to School Resource List (USA)
  • Safer Journey to School : UK
  • Safe Routes Network : UK
  • Safe Routes to Schools : Western Australia
  • Safer Routes to School : Australia, New South Wales
  • California Walk a Child to School Resource List (USA)
  • Safe Routes Learning Games (New Zealand)
  • Logos and Art Work (USA)
  • Way to Go Toolkit (Canada)
  • Way to Go Links (Canada)
  • Pictures from Walk to School 2000 (USA)
  • Quotes from Walk to School 2000 (USA)
  • Sustainable School Travel Database UK
  • Teachers' Ideas (UK)
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    Leading by Example

    Section to follow:
    It is here where you will in time hopefully find the "project summaries" that we are inviting local teams around the world to submit in order to share their experience with other groups, projects and places. One advantage that such sharing can have for them is that they can thereby have the benefit of having external expert comments and suggestions on their plans. This is intended to show the power of open planning in the age of the Information Society.
    • Case A: (Link to summary here.)
    • Case A: (Link to summary here.)
    • Case C: (Link ...)
    • etc.

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    The Insidious Plot

    There are no less than four things that we are hoping to achieve if we can encourage you and your neighbors to organize and run their own Walk to School program on April 19th.
    1. To do it, in great numbers, safely and with joy.
    2. To enjoy it so much that you decide to participate later this year in the International Walk to School Day Program on October 2nd -- and if you are in Britain in their National Walk To School Week 2001 on 21st-25th May.
    3. With the help and insight that these may provide, you may even find yourself making some of these changes with your children and those of your neighbors on a permanent basis.
    4. And finally, perhaps even to begin to thinking a bit differently about all the rest of your transportation choices, perhaps for the first time in such an explicit and challenging manner.
    What great steps toward more sustainable lives those four things would be!

    And here is where you come in

    This is where you come in... the one-click link you can use to share your ideas and tips about people and places with whom we should be in touch to make a success out of ECFD 2001. Better yet, why not click here to reply to the EarthCarFreeDay mailbox so that your information and comments will get to the others immediately, and perhaps stimulate them in turn.

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