In a suburban area of Chicago, kids protested to make the area safer for walking to school (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Kids in big cities often live
close to school, so you’d think walking
to school would be an easy solution to
cutting childhood obesity. But some
parents worry about traffic, abduction,
or gangs so much, they stuff their kids
in the car instead. Shawn Allee met some
groups who want parents to overcome that
fear and let kids burn more calories:
Transcript
Kids in big cities often live
close to school, so you’d think walking
to school would be an easy solution to
cutting childhood obesity. But some
parents worry about traffic, abduction,
or gangs so much, they stuff their kids
in the car instead. Shawn Allee met some
groups who want parents to overcome that
fear and let kids burn more calories:
“I’m going to walk you through what Safe Routes To School is and we’ll talk about
how it works in a place like Chicago.”
This is Melody Geraci.
She’s with the Active Transportation Alliance, a Chicago group that promotes walking and
biking.
For Geraci, there’s plain-jane walking to school where you toss your kid a lunch bucket and
wave goodbye – and there’s organized walking.
In some parts of Chicago and other big cities – parents don’t trust the plain-jane kind.
“When we ask parents, why does your child not walk or bike to school, a lot of
parents will say ‘distance’ – it’s too far. That’s not the case in Chicago. Most kids
live close enough to their neighborhood school to get there by foot, right? But then
they say traffic. People are driving crazy. The streets are hard to cross, not enough
crossing guards, all that stuff.”
Geraci says organized school walking is a remedy: put kids together, and put adults in the
mix.
“There’s this phenomenon called safety in numbers. So if you have fifteen people at
an intersection at a light, they’re much easier to see than just one person trying to
navigate it all by themselves and nobody’s seen what happened.”
Geraci says this safety in numbers idea goes a long way in fighting traffic problems.
It can also work on fear over gangs or abduction.
“When fewer people are outside, walking places, biking places, just being out in
their environment, what happens? Things happen. Crime. There are fewer people
watching.”
Geraci’s message resonates with Carmen Scott-Boria.
Scott-Boria recommends walking to school as a solution to childhood obesity.
But she hesitated at first, because of her experience as a kid.
“The same time that I walked to school, that was also a prime gang-recruiting time
after school, so I definitely was intrigued by the gangs and got involved with gangs
because I walked to school.”
Scott-Boria says she’s not trying to scare parents – she just wants them to know what
they’re up against – and how organized they need to be.
To get an idea of what organized school walking can look like, I head to one of Chicago’s
elementary schools.
Victoria Arredondo and Remedios Salinas are near the school’s back entrance.
They run a walking school bus.
Every day, Arredondo and Salinas walk kids on a fixed route between school and home.
It’s like a bus, with no wheels – and no air pollution.
Arredondo says she gets plenty out of it.
“When I’m walking, I feel famous. People greet me, the neighbors, the businesses,
because they see us with the children and they greet us.”
Arredondo appreciates the recognition – because, every once in a while, it’s clear how
important her volunteer work is.
“We have a problem with gangs. A young lady got caught in the crossfire last year.
Since then the violence has settled down. It’s sad because after the loss, people want
to help.”
Her partner Salinas says that doesn’t last long.
“Sometimes people sign up but they don’t continue after a month, they stop doing
it.”
Salinas and Arredondo say their walking school bus makes everyone feel safer and fewer
cars clog up the street near school.
That translates into cleaner air and more exercise for kids.
That’s a community asset they’re glad to protect – they wish more parents would get on
board.
For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.