She Wants to Ride the School Bus, but It’s Not Working

This cartoon Yehuda Moon cartoon (produced by Rick Smith & Brian Griggs) sums it up – but for parents making this decision every morning, it’s not quite so simple.

“It’s not the first two streets that are the problem; she can cross those. It’s that last street, because it doesn’t have a stop sign. And people drive SO fast through town.”

We stood in one small circle of conversation among many others, the room buzzing with questions about the first week of school. Flocks of small children swooped around our legs, swiping cups of lemonade before flying off to bring mayhem to some formerly-quiet corner of the church.

“It’s frustrating, because I really, really wanted her to ride the bus to school. It’s good for her to learn to take the bus and to have that independence, and to know that if she’s not out there on time she’ll miss it.”

I play with the edges of the paper coffee cup, folding the handle up and down as I listen. The coffee is thick and almost greasy somehow, leaving its mark on the sides of the cup.

“But I have other kids, too – honestly, if I have to wake them up anyway to walk her to the bus stop, it’s just easier to stick them in their car seats.”

Yes, the agony of organizing multiple children for school runs. Pulling the sleeping child out from under their blankets, draping that floppy, unwilling weight over your shoulder as you run out the door, returning to the house to pull a second droopy kid from bed. Tears falling from those bleary eyes, always, mama frazzled and late.

We talked through a couple of possibilities. There aren’t any other kids on her block going to the same bus stop, so a walking school bus (uh… to the school bus?) is out. The problem is that one street that’s hard to cross.

Almost all of the east-west streets around here stop at every intersection, but the north-south streets normally go eight blocks or so between stop signs. Of course, this means that traffic on these streets is much faster and that they’re more difficult and dangerous to cross. They’re designed so that people passing through by car can make good time – but they don’t add value to our neighborhoods.

I can think of three women just off the top of my head this morning who are driving their kids to school because there is a street too busy for their child to cross. I accompany my capable children every day for this same reason. The profound irony of this, of course, is that 20% or more of morning traffic is made up of parents doing just that. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

When we begin to talk about a Montessori City, we’re talking about a place where kids can practice age-appropriate behaviors without being unnaturally constrained by their environment. This is entirely do-able, but it’s going to require us to make some changes – and the sooner we allow our kids to live full lives right in their own neighborhoods, the better off our whole community will be down the road.

“It takes me seven minutes to walk her to the bus stop, longer if her little brother insists on walking. It takes me ten minutes to drive her to school. I think I’ll let her take the bus home, but I’m going to start driving her to school. This just isn’t working.“

Three Ways to Love on ALL the Kids Starting School

They walk off this morning, bright backpacks on their backs and sweet-smelling lunchboxes in their hands (heaven knows those things won’t smell so good at Christmastime). Bouncing down the sidewalk with first-day enthusiasm, excited about new friends and new work. I trail behind, snapping pictures and wondering how it is that these kids who climbed into our bed every single night for years on end are suddenly so confident. So BIG.

We walk with them today, and probably will every day this year. It’s a walk they could easily manage, but you know – traffic.

And so, here’s what I hope the people who drive through my neighborhood this year do as they go on their way to drop off their own little babies-turned-big. (Last year I was one of those driving through, so I get the challenges.)

Hide their phone from themselves.
We saw it already this morning, the good guy we know talking on his cell phone as he breezed through the crosswalk. We can do this. We can put our phones down, turn them off, set them to airplane mode, when we’re going somewhere. It feels like we’re cutting off an appendage, but you know how Jesus said that if a part of your body was getting you in trouble you’d be better off without it? This counts.

Slow down.
I won’t belabor this because we’ve talked about it before and will again, but the human body is not designed for collisions with steel and fiberglass. An adult body considers anything above 20 mph a high speed. With kids, it’s even worse. For every single mile per hour faster we drive – yes, really, in increments that small – there’s a dramatic and measurable increase in the likelihood that a person hit by our car will die. We don’t want that. You don’t want that. We don’t want that for our communities, and we don’t want a kid who makes a mistake to pay for that mistake with his or her life. That’s not the kind of people we are. So let’s slow down.

Chill out.
Some of the worst behavior I’ve ever seen in adult humans has been while waiting in the car line in the past couple years. Honking, yelling, cutting people off, swerving around the whole car line at ridiculous speeds while there are kids walking around – insane. One of the most frustrating pieces of driving is getting stuck in traffic we don’t expect, and we want to make up the time. But it’s not worth it. Let’s keep our cool.

We can do this, and it’s worth it. Why? Because we believe in the beauty, the potential and the right-now awesomesauce of every kid starting their new school adventure this fall. We believe in the futures of the children pulling up in minivans and in the futures of the children who are skidding up on Huffys. We watch out for our kids – ALL of our kids – because as a community, that’s who we are.

Snow Day Survival Guide, including a free printable!

Adorable. Fresh, clean snow.

If you’re all in a panic because your kids are going mad and you don’t have a thing prepared for them to do on the millionth snow day in a row, go on ahead and skip to the end. I won’t tell!

This winter is no joke.

It’s snowed every single day since forever. We haven’t had school since last Wednesday, and wind chills for today are forecast to hit about -30F (which is -34C – we’ve almost converged!).

But what do you do? There are only so many days you can spend huddled inside waiting for spring, especially if you live with lots of little humans.

There’s something to be said for celebrating the place you live, crazy climate and all. In honor of our fourth straight snow day, I’m offering a few hints on getting outside to enjoy this unique weather with a free printable below to wrap it up.

Dress in layers.

And I mean lots of them. Two pair of socks; leggings, long underwear, or fleece tights under jeans; undershirt, long-sleeved shirt, and sweater – this is your base layer. Then add your boots, snowpants, hat, mittens or gloves, and scarf. It’s so much easier to enjoy being out in the snow if you’re dressed for it!

Stay out of the wind.

Play on the sheltered side of the house and avoid open areas – it will make a tremendous difference in how long you’re able to stay outside. Good old-fashioned snow forts make great windblocks, too.

Come in for warming breaks.

This is a new one to me that came from a woman who grew up in Alaska. You can get outside in some crazy cold weather, you just need to come in periodically to let your skin warm up. So send the kids out for twenty minutes – or better yet, join them, the fresh air will do you good too! – then come back in for five or ten minutes to warm up and head right back out. Go ahead and leave the gear on and your sanity may actually remain intact.

Activity for Desperate Parents

Now, for that moment when you really need to go inside, I created – ahem – a printable. It’s a poem called The Snowman which I’ve formatted as a booklet for the kiddos to illustrate. It requires the ability to do double-sided printing but otherwise needs absolutely no preparation ahead of time. It is appropriate for preschoolers and young grade-schoolers (my kids are 5 and 7 and enjoyed it; the 2-year-old took a yogurt bath and decorated my kitchen with cinnamon rather than participate).

Get it while it’s hot (hahahahahaaa):

The Snowman: Click here to download!

Additional Activity for the Exceptionally Motivated or Desperate

Again, this needs no preparation ahead of time. Grab some kind of dish with sides from the kitchen – a cookie sheet with a lip, casserole dish, pie plate, that sort of thing – and bring it outside to put some snow in. Make a miniature snowman. (If you live around here you might need to let the snow warm up a little for it to pack.) Then watch it melt, just like the snowman in the book (hopefully it won’t traumatize your little artistes!). A lesson in solid and liquid states.

UPDATE! What’s a snow day without a video?

Many thanks to Sammy for this suggestion. Head on over there if you love to escape through adoption stories. 🙂

See? You covered nature, literature, and science today. Win!

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More on helping kids thrive in:
Ten Reasons for Your Child to Walk to School
The Courage of Children
The Capability of Children
Car Time to School Keeps Kids from Concentrating

Something for Everybody (Wednesday’s Words)

I ran across this quote in an article about allowing our kids to inform our observations about our places. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. When I was five, I walked to school every day by myself. There was one busy street I needed to cross, but I have to think it wasn’t as busy as the streets in our town are now.

Yesterday as I was walking CJ in to school, she asked, “When can I walk to school by myself?” She craves that independence, that ability to do something by herself. And though I fully support her in this – we’ve explored before how essential this is to a child’s developing abilities, how it affects her cognitive development, how other cultures actively encourage this independence – the traffic on our local streets runs fast. The streets are wide and difficult to cross. There are no crossing guards in the morning (and not enough in the afternoon). We’ve made a city for the able-bodied, but there’s no place here for my little girl and her burgeoning sense of independence.

Jane Jacobs takes this one step further and encourages us to consider a city that is actually created BY everybody. I don’t know exactly what this looks like, but how much healthier would our places be if this were something we strived for? Maybe I’ll ask the girls today. What does a city made for you look like?

What Happened on the Way to School: What YOU Thought

Friends, I can’t thank you enough for your feedback on that post about how I was nearly hit near CJ’s school. I love that we can have this conversation as a community, and hope that those of you who prefer not to comment publicly will feel free to email me at tulip(dot)lane(at)outlook(dot)com.

Now, what you said. I pulled these both from the comments section and my personal Facebook page.

First of all, it’s clear that this type of experience is NOT unique to me. One of my thoughts in the middle of this experience was about why all this weird stuff always happened to ME. What am I doing wrong? Why doesn’t this happen to anybody else? Well. Let’s see what you said:

In the most intensive year of my life as a pedestrian (Chicago, 2011-2012) I was actually hit by a car once while running (minor thing, thank goodness) and had a car clip the front of [my son’s] stroller once. Yes. When you walk more, there’s more chance to experience this kind of crazy.

I’ll have to tell you about the time I was walking my kids to school and hit the trunk of a car with my hand while in the crosswalk because they didn’t give us the right-of-way…

I too have done something like that! Also, one of my friends said her normally calm husband finally walked out to the front of their house one day and yelled at the drivers going too fast to “SLOW DOWN” because there were kids around! Sometimes we just HAVE to speak up!

My takeaway is that when we get out of our cars, we frequently experience the public realm as a a hostile place. We don’t typically seek out confrontation, but when we travel by foot or on bike it seems to become unavoidable. That’s clearly a problem.

I think the fact that the driver had been confronted and punched in the face before is a huge red flag! She obviously drives in an aggressive manner and either isn’t aware or doesn’t care to change. I think you were right to confront her.

I think you did the right thing because when no one calls someone out for improper behavior, it is as if we are encouraging said behavior to continue…

I believe that pedestrians and bicyclists, by extension feel vulnerable and exposed. I applaud you for trying to strike up a dialogue. We need to do that more often and not feel like we were in the wrong even when it’s not our fault. We are quick to blame cyclists and walkers for pushing the boundaries when we do it often in our cars and don’t seem to notice that. (Emphasis mine.)

I thought it was interesting that everyone who commented thought that confronting her was an appropriate response, because I really questioned myself on this point. After I read that last comment above, I figured out why: In my gut, I felt like I was on the wrong because I had been crossing the street. This floors me. I, of all people, have so thoroughly internalized the message our surroundings give that I feel like I’m breaking a rule by crossing the freaking road? What the heck?

The question that remains is the most important one, though – was this conversation effective? And this is where I think Shelly absolutely nailed it:

…learning the genuine art of non-violent communication with these aggressive people is helpful, and can also teach others how to handle their unruliness and regain some humanity.

I don’t think our conversation was completely successful. It led to surface reconciliation, but I’m not convinced that she thought she had done anything wrong or processed that her actions had put me in danger. In fact, I think she may have still felt wronged by me because I acted like I didn’t think she was going to stop. (Gah. That still frustrates me, a week later.) The communication aspect is another post entirely, but I do think it’s key to the conversation. There’s a solid summary of the technique here.

I’m going to end with something Michael said – a reminder and challenge to both myself and all of you.

The more we walk and ride our bikes, the more considerate we will be around other pedestrians and cyclist. Keep up the dialogue.

Fishing by the Heinz Plant (Wordless Wednesday)

A beautiful morning to ride and to fish.

Playground (Wordless Wednesday)

http://instagram.com/p/YvXZ4Zr1cv/

We pulled up to the playground Monday and found that we weren’t the only ones who had biked there! Good friends of ours happened to be there as well.

***
Ticket sales have picked up for Dinner and Bikes. If you’d like to go, order here right away!

Eclectic Edition: Bikes, Buses, Roads, and Malls (Friday Five, March 15, 2013)

One.

Let’s begin with a beautiful post about how a visit to Copenhagen (may I one day ride her streets) inspired a family to take up the bike for transportation.

The first day we rode with our children through the city was one of the best of our lives. …We could go anywhere we wanted, and the kids were screaming with joy and hugging us from their child seats behind us, and sometimes the sun came out, and it was glorious.

…There are lots of reasons that people tell me it doesn’t make sense for them to ride bikes (not that I ask). I think of these now as the “yes, buts.” They are all the reasons that we didn’t think it made sense to ride our bikes before that day changed our lives.

This is the year that I want to move from that “yes, but” place in riding in the kids. I don’t know what our year is going to look like, or if I’m going to be able to ride with the girls the way that I’d like, but being on that bike is FUN.

Two.

Congratulations to our own MAX Transit, who just won the Lights, Camera, Transportation contest sponsored by Trans4M (Transportation for Michigan). The contest was designed to capture what we the people think of our commutes and our transportation infrastructure so we can share these thoughts with our elected officials. MAX’s video, along with all the other submissions, will be posted on YouTube on March 18 – we’ll post the link when we get it, so stay tuned! It should be fun to watch.

Three.

The poetry of road… in Ireland, not America. In America, we’d bulldoze the shnizzit out of that cliff. Cost savings.

I found this next post, on the topic of roads in Ireland, inexplicably poetic. Lovely Bicycle is one of my favorite bicycle blogs – a pleasure to read, every time.

Four.

Thinking smart about transit – a map of key choices.

We’ve been talking a lot about bikes in the last few weeks, but transit is an essential component of efficient local transportation systems. Jarrett Walker, of Human Transit fame, recently published this diagram showing what the effects are of the choices we make regarding transit, and how they either support or undermine the gold standard of “abundant access.” Easy to understand and a great reference. Also, his whole blog is helpful if you wonder why you sometimes see buses running empty – you can find it under discussions of peak-first or all-day.

Five.

This mall has been converted into micro-apartments on the top floor, with micro-retail below.

Ohhh, the shopping mall. Hallmark of the eighties, now killing us softly. Here in Holland we have a sad disaster of a mall with something like a 90% vacancy rate. Popular opinion on it ranges from “ugh” to “why don’t they just tear it down.” So creative ideas are welcome in this realm.

Which is why this project, which is converting one of America’s oldest shopping malls to micro apartments, is so intriguing. The 550-square foot apartments are sold in this article as a great option for someone just moving out of a dorm, but I also see promise for an older person who wants to stay independent as long as possible. Interesting stuff.

Aaaaaand that’s a wrap! We’ll see you back on Tuesday for a story about French artists, swimming lessons, and the cost of transportation. Have a great weekend.

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One Too Many Close Calls: Women and Bicycles

“I just had one too many close calls.”

That was what Rachel said. We were standing in a little circle, she and Bernie and I, chatting about what bikes we rode, and the big White Pine Trail ride she took last year, and all the kinds of things you tend to chat about when you find out that the people around you share your special brand of crazy.

And at some point in the conversation, she said this. How after bike commuting all through the warm season, day after day after day, she tapered down to nearly nothing by the end of the summer. The guy who waved her in front of him… then hit her rear wheel, knocked her down, and raced off. The woman who nearly hit her, braked, and then nearly hit the son who was following her.

One too many close calls.

I get it. I DID it. I rode through 110F heat (not recommended), and on windy, blustery days. I felt like I was getting away with something, leaving the girls with the sitter and riding away ALL BY MYSELF for a half-an-hour break before work.

But the day that the woman in the gray sedan cut me off pulling into the Secretary of State, when I braked and swerved and barely missed being hit… Well, I drove to work the next day. And the day after that. I had a nine-month-old at home! I don’t remember when I rode in after that, but it was much frequently than I had before.

One too many close calls.

I linked to an article over on our Facebook page a week or so ago that addresses this specifically. On a population basis, women are substantially more sensitive to the safety of the bicycling environment than men are. The presence of dedicated bicycle infrastructure – bike lanes and paths – also make a bigger difference to the numbers of women who choose to ride than the number of men who do.

An excerpt from the article:

The big question, of course, was what kept more women from biking. Men and women gave several of the same reasons for not riding, … but the biggest disparity was a safety concern regarding nearby car traffic. While 43 percent of women cited that concern as a reason they didn’t ride, only 28 percent of men said the same.

We’re just not into close calls.

As spring approaches, I’ve been eagerly anticipating getting my bike on the road again. I’ve been brainstorming ways to get more than one girl on the bike that I have now – can I rig something up on my rear rack for the preschooler? What will it feel like to carry two on this bike? Can we make it work? I’m excited to get out there, get moving, to feel the wind and the sun and listen to the spring peepers and smell the thawing earth. Like this woman in Traverse City, I’m eager to trade in the gasoline and make almonds and dark chocolate my fuel of choice.

But will I? Or will traffic make me too nervous, or actually present itself as too dangerous? If someone cuts me off with kids on the bike, will I just hang it up and start trolling the internets for houses and jobs in Portland? (We don’t really ALL have to live in Portland, do we?)

I won’t know until I try. I’ve heard mixed reviews on the forums, with many parents saying that they feel drivers give them much more space when they’re traveling with their children – and many leaning out their windows to tell them that what they’re doing is a bad idea. We don’t change the status quo by following the status quo.

But I’m like Rachel. I’m not into close calls. So… stay tuned?

Around the web on this topic:
Infrastructure to Blame for the Cycling Gender Gap

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Ten Reasons for Your Child to Walk to School

This article is the third in a series on how kids get to school in America. Part one can be found here, and part two can be found here. This will be the last post on this topic for a few weeks.

We’ve been talking about walking to school for a while. But… this seems like a lot of work. Maybe the way we’re doing things right now are working pretty well for us. Why should we consider doing anything differently? In short…

Why does it matter if my kids walk to school?

1. We’ve talked about this bit before: Kids who walk to school can concentrate better.

2. It gets us out of our ruts. When kids walk to school, they tend to choose walking for other trips, too. We call this a virtuous cycle and it’s, you know… virtuous.

3. They get the chance to eat worms. I’m sure it’s good for their immune systems; exposure therapy and all that. But really, the opportunity to interact with their environment is a low-key adventure that we can’t take or granted anymore. Crunchy snow, splashy puddles, frosty spiderwebs, and yes, worms after a rain – all things we don’t experience through a car window.

4. Kids who walk to school are healthier. The experts recommend at least an hour a day of physical activity for kids; a good twenty-minute walk to and from school goes a long way toward meeting that recommendation.

5. There seem to be developmental benefits to allowing kids to walk to school. We’ve heard a lot about helicopter parenting, but research is beginning to show that it’s really important for kids to be able to practice making good, independent decisions from a young age.

6. It’s fun. CJ is in kindergarten right now, and doing things that I swear I learned in third grade. Naptime is long gone, and frankly, sometimes she feels the pressure. Going for a walk is a natural way to decompress, something that kids need, too. And if there happen to be some mud puddles to stomp in, all the better. (For her, not my floors.)

7. It decreases the amount of traffic on our roads. This makes walking safer for everyone in the neighborhood, reduces the need for road repairs or new construction (wear and tear is EXPENSIVE), and improves neighborhood air quality.

8. It frees up parents’ time (eventually). We’ve talked before about how much time we’re spending ferrying our kids around town. It turns out that this has been studied: “women in particular make about two-thirds of the trips, picking up and dropping off other people.” To a certain extent this is a normal component of modern parenthood, but teaching our children to get themselves around in an independent and age-appropriate way allows us to spend our time on whatever other callings we may have. You know, like laundry. So you can get to bed before midnight.

9. You save on gas money. Go buy yourself a cup of coffee, instead.

10. It strengthens your community. You say hi to the neighbor walking their dog on the way to school every day. Before long, that person who used to be a stranger is someone you know and trust. Talk about priceless.

Even if having your kids walk to school isn’t something that works for you right now (it doesn’t for us!), you can still lay the groundwork for their future lives as pedestrians TODAY. The National Center for Safe Routes to School has a decent age-graded PDF on how to help your kids develop strong pedestrian skills. There are things we do so automatically that it doesn’t occur to us to teach them. Okay, honestly – I found it a little bit over-protective. But it does give a good sense of where kids are developmentally at different times.

And remember, everything we talk about here is intended to be in the context of overall community livability, meaning that young, old, single, and disabled members of our community should all be able to participate fully in the life of the neighborhood. Helping our kids walk to school is part of making our neighborhoods strong for everyone.

Perhaps you’d consider a walk today?

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