Kids Learn Benefits Of Walk to School
By Julie Rasicot
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, October 11, 2007
First-grader Anna Brookes walks the two blocks from her Cedar Avenue home to Takoma Park Elementary School each day.
"I really feel like it's better, and it's good exercise," the 6-year-old said. "One of the things I really care about is the environment. I don't like driving."
On Oct. 3, Anna walked a little farther than usual when she joined her father, Adam Brookes, and about 150 other students, parents and school staff at the Takoma Park Municipal Building to celebrate International Walk to School Day by trekking from there to their school on nearby Holly Avenue.
Carrying signs and waving wands adorned with metallic streamers, the group walked along Maple Avenue, turned right onto Philadelphia Avenue and right again onto Holly.
Adam Brookes said one reason he and his daughter regularly walk to school is because it gives them a chance to see neighbors. "It's one of those little things that help root kids to the neighborhood," he said. "It's a small but significant thing to feel part of the neighborhood."
Building community connections while encouraging families to walk is a goal of the city's Safe Routes to School program, which sponsored the walk to Takoma Park Elementary and similar ones to Piney Branch, East Silver Spring and Rolling Terrace elementary schools, said Lucy Neher, the city's Safe Routes program coordinator.
Safe Routes to Schools is a national program aimed at making walking and cycling to school routine and safe. Funding is available to communities through state highway administration grants for education programs and such projects as building sidewalks and crosswalks to improve pedestrian safety.
Takoma Park created its Safe Routes program this year with a $150,000 grant. In addition to the Walk to School Day, workshops on safe cycling and other education events, grant money is funding construction of sidewalks and traffic measures, said David Suls, an associate city planner.
Takoma Park's program includes the four public schools and local private schools John Nevins Andrews and Sligo Adventist.
Other schools in Montgomery County, including Beall, Meadow Hall and Twinbrook elementary schools in Rockville, also participated in Walk to School Day.
Rockville has had a Safe Routes program for five years. The city is using a $435,000 grant to expand its program to target six schools around which speeding and pedestrian safety are concerns. The program will provide more traffic law enforcement, build sidewalks and provide other pedestrian safety measures at Beall, Meadow Hall, Twinbrook, Ritchie Park and College Gardens elementary schools and Julius West Middle School, said Carrie Sanders, the city transportation planner.
"We do have a good amount of missing sidewalks around schools," she said.
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."
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