School's Coming - How Will You Get There?

Ah, summertime. 

Just as I could probably estimate the average temperature in Fairfax by the line length at I can tell it's summertime by the blissful lack of traffic in our fair valley. No backup on Drake; everyone can roll around without encountering any sort of traffic delay it seems. This is one of my favorite features of summer!

But, how can we keep the free and easy roadways of summer during the school year?

Forty years ago almost 90 percent of kids who lived a mile or less from school either rode their bikes or walked to school. Now, that figure is under 60 percent nationally. I'm not sure what the rate is locally, but I see an awful lot of school car traffic in the mornings along the Drake corridor. There are many reasons that parents give for not enabling their school-aged children to walk or bike, including fears of traffic danger and crime in general. 

It seems to me that a lot of the reported problems of childhood today could be mitigated by them using their bodies more frequently and what better way than by getting themselves to and from school when practical. 

My oldest will be attending Kindergarden at this fall and I'll be biking with him to school and his mom will be biking home with him and his brother as much as possible. With the weather we have, that should be over 90 percent of the time. He's really looking forward to it. We live less than a mile from the school, so for us there's no reason to drive unless it's pouring rain.

If you have school-aged children in the , I'd love to hear from you how you plan on getting them to and from school and why you made that choice.