Walking, rolling to school in S.F. is cool this week

Let’s walk and roll, Santa Fe! This week, schools across the city will be celebrating National Walk and Roll to School Day by taking to our streets, sidewalks and trails by foot, bike or scooter. One day is not enough, so let’s celebrate Walk and Roll to School Week together.

The week starts off with bike trains to Nina Otero Community School and Ortiz Middle School on Tuesday, followed Wednesday by a “walking school bus” to Nina Otero, with César Chávez Elementary School and Capital High School students invited and separate processions to El Camino Real Academy and Amy Biehl Community School.

Thursday morning, dozens of students will travel the River Trail to Aspen Community School, with Gonzales Community School families invited, and Friday, dozens more will head to Chaparral Elementary School from Ragle Park.

The community is welcome to join these fun, healthy and environmentally friendly events that help Santa Fe kids get to school wide awake, energized and ready to learn. It’s all part of a federally funded effort called Safe Routes to School, intended to reduce traffic congestion and airborne pollution around schools while improving public health, student performance and community cohesion.

To this end, Santa Fe Public Schools, the city, the Metropolitan Planning Organization, Santa Fe Conservation Trust, Bike Santa Fe and dedicated school staff and families have joined forces to create the Santa Fe Safe Routes To School Coalition.

Beyond promotion, the coalition is teaching bicycle and walking safety to K-8 students, assessing route conditions to recommend improvements, evaluating programming and pursuing an equitable approach to benefit a wide variety of students and families.

Our work is cut out for us — tallies at 12 K-8 schools found about 6 percent of students walked or biked to school on a given day while roughly 15 percent came in a school bus and nearly 80 percent arrived by private vehicle. This holds true even for “neighborhood” schools where walking and bicycling could and should be a more normal, accepted transportation option.

Schools are caught in a vicious cycle of trying to accommodate increasing amounts of private vehicle traffic with longer waiting areas for dropoff and pick-up that ultimately seem to serve to feed the monster of long lines of idling motor vehicles around our schools and our children.

School locations, policies, attendance zones and campus design are critical factors behind how “walkable” or “bikeable” a school may be, as are families’ comfort levels with walking or bicycling and their knowledge of safe routes they might take. The behavior of motorists also can be a decisive factor in a family’s decision whether to let their children walk or bike to school.

The coalition seeks to identify and take on these obstacles and create school communities that support and embrace clean and healthy transportation modes. We are working on an action plan to support and guide these efforts into the future.

But we need your help: If you go to school in Santa Fe, consider walking or biking at least some of the time. If you drive in Santa Fe, please consider the safety of those who are trying to walk or bike — this is an effort the entire community benefits from and should support.

For the full rundown of Walk and Roll to School events Tuesday through Friday, please see the schedule at sfct.org/safe-routes-to-school. If your school is not participating, talk to your principal and see if a promotional event can be put together. A wealth of information is available at walkbiketoschool.org, and your local Safe Routes to School Coalition is happy to help.