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As if I needed any more evidence that we've become far to addicted to our cars, my told me something last night that brings me almost to the point of despair.
In our county, school bus service is not available to any student that lives within a mile of the school, unless there is a "major" (i.e., high traffic volume) street in between. Since we only live a block away from my daughter's school, there is no bus available for her to ride, which is fine with us...after all, its only a block. However, there is one intersection where the sidewalks are a little wonky, requiring either a scramble up a grassy embankment, or a short walk in the street, which irks my wife a bit.
My wife recently tried to talk to the school principal about this, hoping, I think, to get some support to get the sidewalks corrected. My wife pointed out that the current configuration requires that the children walk in the street, which is hardly the safest place for them. The principal's response, completely serious, was "Who walks?" She seemed to believe that all the students who are not transported by bus are driven to school by their parents.
First of all, that attitude is appalling. I know we aren't the only family that has their children walking to school. We aren't all so addicted to our cars that we will drive our children to a school a few blocks from home. However, a lot of people do drive their children. Every afternoon, when school lets out, the street in front of the school is completely lined with cars waiting to pick up children. All of this makes me wonder what the heck we're teaching our children?
In our county, school bus service is not available to any student that lives within a mile of the school, unless there is a "major" (i.e., high traffic volume) street in between. Since we only live a block away from my daughter's school, there is no bus available for her to ride, which is fine with us...after all, its only a block. However, there is one intersection where the sidewalks are a little wonky, requiring either a scramble up a grassy embankment, or a short walk in the street, which irks my wife a bit.
My wife recently tried to talk to the school principal about this, hoping, I think, to get some support to get the sidewalks corrected. My wife pointed out that the current configuration requires that the children walk in the street, which is hardly the safest place for them. The principal's response, completely serious, was "Who walks?" She seemed to believe that all the students who are not transported by bus are driven to school by their parents.
First of all, that attitude is appalling. I know we aren't the only family that has their children walking to school. We aren't all so addicted to our cars that we will drive our children to a school a few blocks from home. However, a lot of people do drive their children. Every afternoon, when school lets out, the street in front of the school is completely lined with cars waiting to pick up children. All of this makes me wonder what the heck we're teaching our children?
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Date: 2006-06-06 05:20 pm (UTC)As for getting the sidewalk addressed...here's the problem:
The "sidewalk" in front of our house is technically a bike trail, installed and maintained by the county. This asphalt trail ends (or technically, begins) at the intersection at the top of the hill. From that intersection to the school, it is an actual sidewalk (poured concrete), which is maintained by the state. The sidewalk turns at the intersection and follows the side street. At the intersection, the sidewalk is on top of a small embankment (about 3 feet high), and does not come down to street level at the intersection. So, when walking up to the school from our house, we follow the bike trail to the intersection, where it ends. Across the street is a 3 foot high embankment with a sidewalk on top of it. Because the sidewalk and the bike path were installed and maintained by different jurisdictions, neither one is going to feel that fixing this issue is their problem. We are planning to talk to our representative on the County Board of Supervisors (who is generally pretty responsive), but I'm not holding my breath on getting things fixed anytime soon.