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School run: Cutting car use will take much more than educating children and parents:
As the summer holidays come to an end and children return to school following lockdown, there couldn't be a better time for us to consider the school commute. Nowadays, many children in the UK commute to school by car. But getting more parents to ditch the car for school journeys and switch to more active modes of travel, such as walking or cycling, is of great public health importance.
[...] As cities have expanded under suburban sprawl, commuting distances to school have increased. They are longer now than they have ever been before. This is another reason more children travel to school by car now than they used to. Less than half of all children in England attend their most local school.
An education policy that lets parents choose their child's school compounds the issue of suburban sprawl. Those parents that are able to exercise choice do so, and in some cases travel great distances so that their child attends the best-performing school. Once school choice has been decided, so too has children's mode of travel to school. Longer school commutes equals more car travel.
[...] Tackling the real causes of car dependency on the school commute would benefit children, society and the environment. It would solve several public health challenges.
If all children attended their local school, fewer children would travel by car, and because of this, fewer children would be injured on the roads. There would be less noise pollution and less air pollution, which would reduce children's risk of developing respiratory conditions. We would see more people speaking to each other on our streets because of the increase in footfall, and there would be an improved sense of safety because there would be more "eyes on the street."
Will eliminating school choice for children make them healthier?
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday August 27 2020, @08:43PM (3 children)
everyfuknwhere. Early teens I went to the "good" library (La Mesa, 4 miles), not the smaller, crappy (Fletcher Hills, 1 mile) library. Rode for about 1.5 miles to Jr High (age 12-14). Rode 3 miles to high school until I got a car (age 14-16). Even after I got a car I still rode my bike a lot to school cuz parking was a bitch, and theft was a thing. This was the 70s.
But sometime after the 70s the OMG serial killer and OMG sexual predator and OMG that's too hard took over, and kids just don't do that kind of thing anymore. I mean, I did it on a POS 3 speed Huffy bike. Never met a serial killer or predator I didn't like.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 27 2020, @09:01PM (2 children)
I rode a 3 speed rental bike that must have weighed 30+ kilos from Hamburg up into Denmark and back. Met up with a couple of other guys on bikes doing a similar tour and we rode together for 3-4 days - one of them was on a better 3 speed and the other was on a fairly nice 10 speed. I thought they'd clobber me on the hills of Funen, but it was really much more about conditioning than the quality of the bike - I kept up just fine, was actually leading through the 2nd half of the day, the guy on the 10 speed was struggling. A couple of days later, I ate too much of the smorgasboard meats for breakfast and we set out for a 10km causeway crossing with a really stiff headwind, and I almost died while the other guys struggled, but not nearly as bad as me.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @04:44AM
He is talking about doing things as a teen, not your lifestyle choices as a Euro Homosexual.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @03:24PM
Yeah shut up you fag with your elite bicycle riding and smorgasbord of liberal bullshit. Why do hate America?