The Chainlink

International Walk / Bike to School Day

So -- apparently international walk/bike to school day is October 5th. 

http://www.walktoschool.org/

 

Does anyone know of any Chicago area events connected to this?

This is all I've found so far:  http://saferoutesambassadors.org/?page_id=86

One CPS school in the city seems a bit meager.

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Permalink Reply by jennifer james on September 22, 2011 at 6:28pm

We'd do a bike to school day like the one we did for the Bike to Work Week but we are track E and not in school. We'd be glad to help anyone out there that needs help organizing a bike train. We have a post on growing bike trains on our little blog- Chicargobike.blogspot.com.

We love the Ambassadors- they are always amazing with our kids when they do a program.

As anyone who has to spend more than three minutes in a room with me can tell you... I think we could grow the infrastructure in the neighborhoods so that kids can actually ride to school. There's more to it than the brochure about safe riding. CDOT and the city could really grow awareness about safe riding to school for younger riders but I think that before you can tell families how to ride it's best to get practice riding with kids. Many kids travel a ways to school and we have a wide variety of schools and distances that kids travel. Many kids live in neighborhoods that are utterly unsafe to travel through in broad daylight on foot or on a bike.

I've heard that ATA is adding student riders to there bike to work week but am not sure it that's really the case.

Permalink Reply by Active Transportation Alliance on September 23, 2011 at 10:57am

Schools can still register their event at www.walktoschool.org.

 

Active Trans is supporting the Academy of Global Citizenship’s event and providing technical assistance to several in suburban communities. CDOT has some plans too, the Ambassadors will be out!

 

And we are working on an expansion of our bike commuter challenge tracking system that would allow year-round tracking for schools, employeers, groups, etc. It's a project that the RTA hired us to do (http://www.activetrans.org/rtarfp).

 

It was supposed to launch this fall but we had a vendor drop the project and are now moving to a second vendor (such a process!). Hopefully we'll have this rolled out in the spring...fingers crossed, all.

 

We definitely had to scale back on some of our Walk to School day efforts this year, unfortunately. But, future years should provide more support and funding. We work closely with Clif Bar and some other companies and businesses that love this day (like we do).

 

Ethan Spotts, Active Trans

Permalink Reply by Ash L. on September 23, 2011 at 1:04pm

I am working on walking school buses and bike to school week for Bike/Walk 35 but I'm having a difficult time finding any schools to agree to participate. We have established our first walking school bus in the 35th ward which will likely go year round and that is more important for the health of our community and its residents than a single day event.

 

Still, bike to school day/week is fun and an easy way for school to show that they are doing something about the obesity problem, however meager. My daughter's school, Mitchell, did some great relay races for bike to school week last year. Now that she can ride a two-wheeler this will be the first time P can participate so she's over the moon about it.

Permalink Reply by danny on September 25, 2011 at 1:15pm

hey,

We just finished bike to school week. It was pretty successful. We didn't quite break 60 each day between staff and stduents at a school of 2200 in skokie.

We provide breakfast, hot choc, cold gatorade/water, granola bars, some gave extra credit, and a student was djing some loud sounds before school.

Here's some picks of our clubs fun:

https://picasaweb.google.com/bikinvikings

It gets colder and more wet as the season goes on, and in spring bike to work week is after our school is out for the year.

I applied for a grant to safer routes and they didn't even respond to my proposal, so I won't be wasting my time with that one again.

I love the idea about bike caravans and relay races--THANKS!!

Danny

mrnuevohombre@yahoo.com

Permalink Reply by Elizabeth on September 26, 2011 at 10:45am

Thanks!  Looks like our school doesn't have any activities for this year, but maybe we can help put something together for next year.  We've been talking for awhile about starting a Hyde Park Kidical Mass, and I'm starting to think April would be a good time to do that.  Then we could hopefully have a group of interested biking families by the fall, to help get the word out.

 

I like the idea of this "bike fairy"!  http://carfreedays.com/2010/05/21/the-bike-fairy-and-bike-to-school...

Permalink Reply by Ash L. on September 26, 2011 at 10:51am
That bike fairy will haunt my nightmares.
Permalink Reply by Joe TV on October 6, 2011 at 2:33pm

How did Bike to School day go?  

 

Just this morning, seemingly out of nowhere, I started wondering what, if anything, is being done to encourage students to bike commute.  I started a post before I decided to search the topic and found this post.  

 

As I started to entertain the notion I wrote down a few thoughts:

 

Can you imagine how much different things would be if the paradigm shifted towards the promotion of children riding bicycles to school?  I really don't even know where to start.  

From the design and placement of school buildings, to a push for safer routes, to an early instillation of a cycle-centric lifestyle choice, to the proven links between exercise and learning, etc. etc. etc. the possible ramifications of a bike to school movement are limitless.

 

Does CPS have a policy re: bike commuting students?  

 

Maybe it's a good time to start planning for a big push for next year.  

 

 

Permalink Reply by Elizabeth on October 6, 2011 at 2:37pm

We all biked to school yesterday, but I only remembered it was Bike To School Day after I dropped the kids off.  Certainly I saw no sign of it, or any increased number of bikes in the bike rack.  :( 

That said, we had a beautiful bike to school; the weather has been really extraordinary this week.

Permalink Reply by Nançois on October 6, 2011 at 2:44pm

Sorry, but someone has to add this and I guess it will be me:

"Back in my day, EVERY day was bike/walk to school day! In the snow, uphill, both ways..." :)

Permalink Reply by Elizabeth on October 6, 2011 at 2:54pm

Yeah, it's like Bike-to-Work-Week.  Woohoo, they biked to work for one week! 

But the idea is to get people hooked on gateway stuff.  Bike to school one beautiful fall day to much applause, and maybe you'll realize that it's easy to do everyday.  I think it can also help build self-awareness of a biking community, which can help with things like bike trains and kidical masses.

So I'm disappointed not to see any bike-to-school day celebration, even though it wouldn't have directly affected our own bike patterns.

Permalink Reply by Joe TV on October 13, 2011 at 2:15am

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