Step on the Sidewalk, and No One Has to Step on the Gas

The city also will expand existing education programs, including one that teaches students how to ride bicycles safely and to obey traffic laws. Efforts to encourage walking and cycling to school, such as the Walk to School events, will be expanded.

At Takoma Park Elementary, students finished their walk by gathering for a brief talk about pedestrian safety by city police Cpl. Tina Smith.

Sandy Egan, the school's attendance secretary and the event's coordinator, said the school is encouraging more students to walk because of the health benefits and to reduce traffic near the school. Traffic jams during arrival and departure are a problem that is likely to worsen during construction of an addition in 2009, she said.

"It's amazing to me how many people drive to school when they could be walking," Egan said.

Lisa Cookson doesn't hesitate to send her 7-year-old son, Parker, out the door of their Grant Street home to walk two blocks to his school.

"We walk to school every day. It's very important to do that," Cookson said. "I did it as a kid."

Parker likes it, too. "Every day, I walk down because it's fun, because there's no parents around," he said. "I like to talk to friends walking to school."

At Rolling Terrace Elementary in Takoma Park, walk organizers focused on encouraging students to make good decisions about safety as about 200 students, parents and staff members walked a quarter-mile from Garland Park to the school on Bayfield Street, Principal Jennifer Connors said.

"We tried to promote the safety aspect," she said.

School buses let out Piney Branch Elementary School students in a parking lot a few blocks from their Maple Avenue school so they could walk in a sidewalk parade monitored by teachers, staff and local police.

Randhir Gulati, the school's physical education teacher, said he organized the Piney Branch walk because "kids don't get enough exercise as it is."

"We want to get kids to walk, to realize walking is fitness," he said. "People think you have to do weight lifting. Walking is just as good."