Next American City » Magazine » The Wheels Go Round

Karyn Gilvarg, Director of the New Haven, Connecticut, City Plan Department, remembers walking to school as a child in Queens, New York: “I walked or biked, rain or shine. My own son’s school is across town, too far to walk. He could take the bus, but it’s quicker to drive him.” In an October 2002 survey by the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP), a transportation safety think tank, 71 percent of Americans said they walked or rode a bike to school as children; today, only 10 to 17 percent of children do so. The survey also found that, in deciding where to live, being within walking distance of a school was important to only 29 percent of parents, whereas good schools were important to 69 percent.

More Choice, Less Walking

For most parents, when it comes right down to it, getting your children to the best school trumps being able to walk there. Most families used to have no other choice than to send their kids to the school in their neighborhood. In the 1960s, mandates for racial and economic school integration led to busing of children outside their home neighborhood. Now, many cities have introduced the concept of “school choice”: families choose a school, such as a magnet or charter school, according to the type of education they want for their child. School choice grew exponentially in the 1990s, so that by 2001, 32 states had passed legislation supporting it. Between 1997 and 1999, the number of charter schools nationwide doubled to 1,500.

New Haven is a case in point. With the largest per capita school construction program in the country, New Haven now lists nearly half of its 56 schools as magnets, for which all city school children are eligible, and some of which are even open to non-residents. The newly built, or in many cases rebuilt, schools are within walking distance of families with school-age children. As Susan Weisselberg, head of school construction, points out, “most school projects are renovations of existing buildings which were built within neighborhoods when people not only walked to school but also walked home for lunch.” But New Haven’s growing emphasis on school specialization encourages families to choose the school that’s best for their child, not closest.

While school choice has added to transportation costs, according to the STPP’s national study, parents say the principal reason kids don’t walk is that schools are too far away from home. Nationally, pupils bused at public expense grew from 43 percent in 1970 to 57 percent in 2000–and that statistic doesn’t account for the kids being privately driven or driving themselves to school.

Even when school is close by, safety concerns–about careless driving or strangers on the street–are cited as the second most important reason to get behind the wheel.

Jonathan Edwards, Town Planner for Hanover, New Hampshire, says that the number one reason few kids walk to school in his city is “the perception of danger due to the high volume of car traffic, particularly during the morning rush.” Perversely, he points out, “the problem feeds on itself: more parents drive their kids, adding to the traffic volumes they’re concerned about to begin with.”

Safe Routes to School

Both cars and buses have drawbacks when compared to walking. Buses increase municipal expense, cars increase local traffic levels, and both create air pollution and contribute to kids’ health problems. John Wargo, a Yale professor who specializes in environmental risk analysis, found that children’s exposure to diesel exhaust from school buses is far higher than EPA estimates and may contribute to rising asthma rates in school kids. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimate that three times as many children are overweight today as 25 years ago, attributing part of this weight gain to the exercise that kids miss when they don’t walk or bike to school.

In an effort to decrease transportation costs, Hanover residents have organized “walk to school” and “way to go” days. “It is ironic that what used to be as natural as washing your face in the morning now has to be organized,” says Edwards. Bus ridership increased by 17 percent on the designated “way to go” day, when families were asked to walk or bus to school instead of driving. “That increase implies that more people would take the bus if it were convenient to do so,” says Kim Perez, who organized the program. Indeed, bus ridership increased dramatically, she says, when the town split the school bus routes so that it took much less than the hour and a quarter it used to.

Hanover’s programs are part of a growing movement of state and federal funding for “Safe Routes to School.” Eighteen states now fund projects that enhance pedestrian safety around schools. California has made the biggest commitment, allotting $20 million a year since 1999 for a municipal construction grant program.

Marin County, California, used the grant money to install a bike trail, new curb ramps, and driver speed feedback units. Grassroots-organized “Walk / Bike to School Days” and art contests encouraged the community to make use of the new facilities. The rate at which children bike to school more than doubled, and walking increased by 64 percent.

But despite Marin County’s success, more than six out of ten kids there are still driven to school there. And it remains to be seen whether even that modest success can be achieved in low-income and minority neighborhoods, which are at the greatest risk for pedestrian accidents, and to date have received less than their fair share of the Safe Routes to School funds, according to a STPP analysis. Even in cities where new or renovated schools are cheek by jowl with homes, the emphasis on school choice, coupled with families’ time and safety considerations, probably means that most kids will continue to get to school by car and bus.