The war on biking
Have you noticed kids no longer bike to school?
One of the reasons is that schools no longer encourage biking. Take the case of Bridgewater-Raritan High School in New Jersey. Students there banded together and managed to raise $2,000 to purchase a new bike rack at the school. But school officials denied their request. Katherine Dransfield, one of the students seeking to organize a school bike club, explained that “Essentially, what they told us was that they didn’t want to promote biking as a way to get to school.”
The school officials should be ashamed of themselves. Biking has numerous benefits. It promotes public health and exercise (and our students, many of whom are struggling with obesity, could certainly use it), reduces traffic congestion, and helps the environment by reducing pollution.
In fact, some here at Fordham regularly bike to work during the spring and summer. Mike Petrilli, our esteemed Vice-President for National Policy, is an avid biker. He’s also our resident greenie and political squish, who champions organic food, energy conservation, and combating global warming. I, on the other hand, being a hard-boiled conservative, don’t share Mike’s—how shall I say it—romantic views. I’m all for steaks and gas-guzzling cars. I do, however, commute to work on the train and subway everyday. So, I can’t be that much of a reactionary.
Regardless of our ideological differences, there is one undeniable fact: Mike is considerably slimmer and fitter than I am. A major reason for this is that he exercises regularly—and biking is a key part of his regimen. It is good for you; the more biking, the better. It’s time students were reintroduced to the joys and benefits of riding their bikes. And schools should not stand in their way.
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May 6th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
I am told — though I have no cite for this — that schools are liable if kids get injured on their way to or from school. As a bike commuter myself, I’ve seen that people tend to overestimate the dangers of biking (because they don’t know anything about it). I can see why this would be a disincentive for schools to encourage biking, but if true, it’s stupid and ought to be changed. The problem of people being enormously prejudiced against cyclists (to the point that a $500 fine for killing a cyclist was voted down as excessive a few years ago in my state)...well, this prejudice is also stupid and ought to be changed, but darned if I know how.
By the way, a nearby elementary school is on one of the best bike paths in the nation — if there’s any school in the country that should be bike-friendly, it’s this one; talk about your safe route to school. A family of avid cyclists has tried to get the principal to install a bike rack, but he refused too.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:26 am
While I agree with the general idea that we should encourage students to exercise, and that biking to school is a great way to get kids behaving in both a healthy and environmentally friendly way, the criticism of Bridgewater-Raritan here ignores the details of the specific case. Bridgewater-Raritan High School is located basically at the intersection of a number of major highways. This is not a neighborhood school that kids would be riding to along sidewalks. Many of them would be riding along the sides of two-lane highways with 45 and 50 mile per hour speed limits. In their specific situation, I think the school is justified in deciding that the immediate safety of its students outweigh the long-term health benefits of riding a bike to school. I don’t think the school has anything to be ashamed of here.