Walk and Bike: A Healthy Way to Get to School

With all the hot and humid days of summer still upon us, it is hard to think about shopping for school clothes, supplies, and preparing our children for the early morning commute to school. But, ready or not, some schools have already begun their new school year. Now might be a good time to think about talking to your child about the possibility of walking or biking to school.

Walking and biking are great ways for children to be more active and healthier. Obesity rates in children seem to be growing in leaps and bounds, but our children are not exercising enough to stomp out those rates. The Surgeon General recommends 30 minutes of exercise daily. So, encouraging walking or biking to school could help meet that daily dose of physical activity and make it a regular part of your child's routine. Daily exercise helps improve your child's health and well-being. In addition, these kinds of activities are not costly to the child or the family. Walking is free and does not require any special equipment. Walking and biking to school also provide ways for children to learn to be more social and be more independent. Some of the additional rewards of walking or biking to school are the fact that there will be less traffic, safer streets and cleaner air for all of us.

Some of our local schools are involved in "Walk to School Day" events during the International Walk to School Week, which is October 4-8th. The week is a chance to celebrate the benefits of walking and biking. Downes Elementary, in Newark, participated in this walking program last year and will be doing so again this year. Some parents may elect to start their own "walking school buses" where several adults escort a group of children during the walk to school. Children under 10 years of age need adult supervision. Choose the safest route and walk it with your child to practice with them. "Walk to School Week" also creates the opportunity to identify challenges and solutions to finding those safe routes to school.

The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, the Partnership for a Walkable America, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, are promoting the "Safe Routes to School Training Program". Workshops will be held in the fall of 2004 and spring of 2005 to identify ways to address the safety of children walking and biking to school. To address issues of safety, the program utilizes the "Four E's" of Education, Encouragement, Engineering, and Enforcement. The program is focused on providing practical skills and guidance for parents, teachers, school administrators, engineers and community partners to work together to provide safe well-maintained walkways separate from vehicles; to teach children safe walking behavior such as to cross streets at marked crossings; encourage regular walking and biking; and to provide well-designed, roadways with traffic calming methods, lighting, signs, and accessible and monitored crosswalks; and to slow traffic in neighborhoods and near schools by enforcing posted speed limits and traffic laws to reinforce safe driving habits by adults. For more information on these workshops, contact the Cooperative Extension office in Newark at 302-831-COOP.

Whether your child will be walking, biking or taking the bus to school this year, please take time to remind your child of these safety tips: Teach children to recognize and obey all traffic signs and signals; to look in all direction before crossing and to make eye contact with drivers of vehicles; to cross at intersections or marked crosswalks monitored by a crossing guard and not from between parked cars or behind bushes; to be alert of cars in bad weather and not to walk or ride at night; wear bright-colored clothing or retro-reflective materials; walk facing traffic and bike with the flow of traffic; wear bike helmets --- it is the law; and to cross at least ten feet in front of a school bus. If children are walking or biking they need to take the time to cross safely. A good motto for all pedestrians and bicyclists is to Be Safe, Be Smart and Be Seen.

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