"How Low-Income Cyclists Go Unnoticed"

On Friday, May 19, 2017 at 10:36:09 PM UTC-4, sms wrote:
On 5/19/2017 12:09 PM, wrote:

snip

I'd argue strongly with this one. Your other statements may be correct.. But not this one in my part of the country. Or anywhere else except maybe, maybe Silicon Valley. Not even LA or San Diego where the weather is even better than San Fran.

My daughter was in the first class at a new middle school. The school
district apparently believed that no self-respecting parent would allow
their child to ride a bicycle to school because there are so many
parents that won't even let their kids walk one block. So they put in
one bike parking area and thought it would be more than enough. It was
OVERWHELMED with bicycles. They rushed to construct a second parking area..

At
,227m/data=!3m1!1e3
you can zoom in and see how many bicycles are there, upper left and
lower right. And this must have been a bad day because even though the
bike lots are pretty full, usually bikes are parked in other places,
like leaned against the chain link fences or locked to trees, because
there's not enough room. If you go northwest a bit you can see the
current Apple campus, adjacent to the school.

I scrolled over to the high school but the satellite image must have
been from a weekend as the campus has no cars and no bicycles. Every
Thursday I go to a Toastmasters meeting across from the school that
starts at the same time as school starts, and I end up riding with a lot
of high school students.

But the elementary school has very very few kids riding to school by
themselves though occasionally a parent is riding with a student.

I am surprised that other suburban areas are not similar to my city.

Yet in some areas there are bylaws or some other thing that PROHIBIT children riding their bicycles to school.

http://www.freerangekids.com/student...l-help-needed/

http://www.bicycling.com/culture/com...udent-cyclists
"As Adam locked his bike to a fence, a radio call came in to the administrative office. "Security told me that two bikes were getting involved with the buses," remembers the school principal, Stuart Byrne. "We hadn't heard from anyone beforehand. My assistant responded and said, 'Where are they?'"







An assistant principal, Robert Loggins, found Janette in front of the school, waiting for a lull in the traffic so she could depart. Adam had already gone inside.

"What are you doing here?" Loggins asked Janette.

Janette thought this an odd question. "It's Bike to Work Day," she said. "Did you ride your bike to school?"

"Bicycling isn't allowed at Maple Avenue School," said Loggins.

Janette did a double take. "You're kidding me," she said. "Right?"

Loggins wasn't smiling. He said that Adam's bike would be placed in the school's boiler room, and Janette should come back and get it later that day in her car."

Snipped:
"According to its surveys, in 2009 only 13 percent of all children walked or rode to school, whereas in 1969 nearly half (48 percent) did. The remoteness of the new schools is not the only cause: Among students who lived within one mile of school 43 years ago, 88 percent walked or bicycled, while today only 38 percent do."

http://guide.saferoutesinfo.org/intr..._bicycling.cfm

http://www.bikecitizens.net/top-10-c...-prohibitions/
"#7 to School, but Not by Bicycle

"Actually, a person should be happy if children can go to school by bike. A number of schools in the UK and the USA saw this differently in 2009. They prohibited their students from even appearing with their bicycles. Particularly well-known cases are those of Adam Marino in Saratoga Springs, USA and Sam O’Shea in Portsmouth, Great Britain. Adam’s mother didn’t give up, though, and accompanied her son to school by bike. And at 14 years of age, Sam was the youngest competitor at the Abu Dhabi Triathlon."

Cheers

On Fri, 19 May 2017 19:32:43 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 5/19/2017 12:09 PM, wrote:

snip

I'd argue strongly with this one. Your other statements may be correct. But not this one in my part of the country. Or anywhere else except maybe, maybe Silicon Valley. Not even LA or San Diego where the weather is even better than San Fran.

My daughter was in the first class at a new middle school. The school
district apparently believed that no self-respecting parent would allow
their child to ride a bicycle to school because there are so many
parents that won't even let their kids walk one block. So they put in
one bike parking area and thought it would be more than enough. It was
OVERWHELMED with bicycles. They rushed to construct a second parking area.

At
,227m/data=!3m1!1e3
you can zoom in and see how many bicycles are there, upper left and
lower right. And this must have been a bad day because even though the
bike lots are pretty full, usually bikes are parked in other places,
like leaned against the chain link fences or locked to trees, because
there's not enough room. If you go northwest a bit you can see the
current Apple campus, adjacent to the school.

I scrolled over to the high school but the satellite image must have
been from a weekend as the campus has no cars and no bicycles. Every
Thursday I go to a Toastmasters meeting across from the school that
starts at the same time as school starts, and I end up riding with a lot
of high school students.

But the elementary school has very very few kids riding to school by
themselves though occasionally a parent is riding with a student.

I am surprised that other suburban areas are not similar to my city.

It must be a social thing as I asked my 14 year old granddaughter abut
riding a bike to school and she assured me that no one did that at her
school. When I asked her why not she assured me that it "wasn't cool",
to use Usian terms, and not being "cool" was really, really, un-cool
:-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Friday, May 19, 2017 at 7:36:09 PM UTC-7, sms wrote:
On 5/19/2017 12:09 PM, wrote:

snip

I'd argue strongly with this one. Your other statements may be correct.. But not this one in my part of the country. Or anywhere else except maybe, maybe Silicon Valley. Not even LA or San Diego where the weather is even better than San Fran.

My daughter was in the first class at a new middle school. The school
district apparently believed that no self-respecting parent would allow
their child to ride a bicycle to school because there are so many
parents that won't even let their kids walk one block. So they put in
one bike parking area and thought it would be more than enough. It was
OVERWHELMED with bicycles. They rushed to construct a second parking area..

At
,227m/data=!3m1!1e3
you can zoom in and see how many bicycles are there, upper left and
lower right. And this must have been a bad day because even though the
bike lots are pretty full, usually bikes are parked in other places,
like leaned against the chain link fences or locked to trees, because
there's not enough room. If you go northwest a bit you can see the
current Apple campus, adjacent to the school.

I scrolled over to the high school but the satellite image must have
been from a weekend as the campus has no cars and no bicycles. Every
Thursday I go to a Toastmasters meeting across from the school that
starts at the same time as school starts, and I end up riding with a lot
of high school students.

But the elementary school has very very few kids riding to school by
themselves though occasionally a parent is riding with a student.

I am surprised that other suburban areas are not similar to my city.

Around here, it depends on the school. https://bikeportland.org/2013/09/05/...l-photos-93524

Very few people rode to my son's grade school. My wife volunteers at my son's former high school, and she says the racks are full and that kids chain-up bikes to random light posts, etc.

His middle-school was a sketchy commute from our house -- twisting no-shoulder roads and some nasty little hills, but he rode now and then. It was kind of an adventure. I can't say that I wasn't worried a bit. I worry about myself on some of the roads. I commuted to law school on the same road, and one morning traffic was tied up because some cyclist got hit -- this was before cycling took off in Portland.

-- Jay Beattie.

On 5/20/2017 12:36 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:


Yet in some areas there are bylaws or some other thing that PROHIBIT children riding their bicycles to school.

http://www.freerangekids.com/student...l-help-needed/

http://www.bicycling.com/culture/com...udent-cyclists

From that _Bicycling_ magazine article:

As a 2002 report compiled by the National Trust for Historic
Preservation (NTHP) explained, over the past several decades communities
around the country have abandoned old, centrally located schools in
densely populated neighborhoods and built new facilities on bigger
properties far from the center of town. For middle schools, the Council
of Education Facility Planners recommends at least 20 acres of land plus
another acre for every 100 students—a policy that, according to the
NTHP, amounts to "the construction of giant educational facilities in
remote, middle-of-nowhere locations that rule out the possibility of
anyone walking to school."

Last year, our suburban village voted down a school levy for the first
time since at least 1980, and probably much longer. Why? The school
board wanted to tear down the three historic school buildings within the
village and move all the students to a proposed new campus a couple
miles out of town, just as described in that article.

Admittedly, there are not many kids biking to school here, and I
wouldn't be surprised if they have some rule against it. (There are
school board members who should be demoted to janitors.) But there are
hundreds of kids who walk to school, and that would certainly stop if
they had to trudge two miles or more. In any case, the vote against the
school levy was overwhelming.

The two schools that are within my little neighborhood both suffer from
packs of SUVs parked with their engines running, holding suburban moms
picking up their suburban princes and princesses. Some kids are not
only too delicate to walk or bike, they're even too delicate to ride in
a school bus.

BTW, these schools are all accessible by low traffic streets and
no-traffic cut-through paths. The few high traffic streets can be
reasonably avoided, or crossed at traffic lights with crosswalks.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 5/20/2017 9:06 AM, jbeattie wrote:

Around here, it depends on the school. https://bikeportland.org/2013/09/05/...l-photos-93524

Very few people rode to my son's grade school. My wife volunteers at my son's former high school, and she says the racks are full and that kids chain-up bikes to random light posts, etc.

I still volunteer at my kid's former high school for the band tournament
and when I go to pre-TOB meetings some racks are right next to the music
building and they are full. We tried to get cameras put in because of
theft issues but the school wouldn't do it, claiming privacy issues.

His middle-school was a sketchy commute from our house -- twisting no-shoulder roads and some nasty little hills, but he rode now and then. It was kind of an adventure. I can't say that I wasn't worried a bit. I worry about myself on some of the roads. I commuted to law school on the same road, and one morning traffic was tied up because some cyclist got hit -- this was before cycling took off in Portland.

It's a big worry of parents. Two years ago a Monta Vista High School
student was killed while riding to school. It jolted the city of its
stupor when it came to traffic congestion and roads with no shoulder.

On 5/20/2017 10:07 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

snip

(There are school board members who should be demoted to janitors.)
Wow, I finally agree with Frank about something! But actually that is
very unfair to lump criminals in with janitors.

On Sat, 20 May 2017 13:07:57 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 5/20/2017 12:36 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:


Yet in some areas there are bylaws or some other thing that PROHIBIT children riding their bicycles to school.

http://www.freerangekids.com/student...l-help-needed/

http://www.bicycling.com/culture/com...udent-cyclists

From that _Bicycling_ magazine article:

As a 2002 report compiled by the National Trust for Historic
Preservation (NTHP) explained, over the past several decades communities
around the country have abandoned old, centrally located schools in
densely populated neighborhoods and built new facilities on bigger
properties far from the center of town. For middle schools, the Council
of Education Facility Planners recommends at least 20 acres of land plus
another acre for every 100 students—a policy that, according to the
NTHP, amounts to "the construction of giant educational facilities in
remote, middle-of-nowhere locations that rule out the possibility of
anyone walking to school."

Last year, our suburban village voted down a school levy for the first
time since at least 1980, and probably much longer. Why? The school
board wanted to tear down the three historic school buildings within the
village and move all the students to a proposed new campus a couple
miles out of town, just as described in that article.

Admittedly, there are not many kids biking to school here, and I
wouldn't be surprised if they have some rule against it. (There are
school board members who should be demoted to janitors.) But there are
hundreds of kids who walk to school, and that would certainly stop if
they had to trudge two miles or more. In any case, the vote against the
school levy was overwhelming.

The two schools that are within my little neighborhood both suffer from
packs of SUVs parked with their engines running, holding suburban moms
picking up their suburban princes and princesses. Some kids are not
only too delicate to walk or bike, they're even too delicate to ride in
a school bus.

BTW, these schools are all accessible by low traffic streets and
no-traffic cut-through paths. The few high traffic streets can be
reasonably avoided, or crossed at traffic lights with crosswalks.

When I went to high school the students were not allowed to drive to
school. Years later the town decided to build a new high school and
the major problem was obtaining a suitable tract of land large enough
for the parking lot :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

Walmart's tail n headlamp costs rose into milking children of the middle class from the cost profit reality area barely affordable to a ...as the writer claims...a large group of economically strapped commuters.

Wal should move to traiting affordable lights in these nayborhoods.

And tires with respectable tubes

On Saturday, May 20, 2017 at 10:08:05 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/20/2017 12:36 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:


Yet in some areas there are bylaws or some other thing that PROHIBIT children riding their bicycles to school.

http://www.freerangekids.com/student...l-help-needed/

http://www.bicycling.com/culture/com...udent-cyclists

From that _Bicycling_ magazine article:

As a 2002 report compiled by the National Trust for Historic
Preservation (NTHP) explained, over the past several decades communities
around the country have abandoned old, centrally located schools in
densely populated neighborhoods and built new facilities on bigger
properties far from the center of town. For middle schools, the Council
of Education Facility Planners recommends at least 20 acres of land plus
another acre for every 100 students—a policy that, according to the
NTHP, amounts to "the construction of giant educational facilities in
remote, middle-of-nowhere locations that rule out the possibility of
anyone walking to school."

Last year, our suburban village voted down a school levy for the first
time since at least 1980, and probably much longer. Why? The school
board wanted to tear down the three historic school buildings within the
village and move all the students to a proposed new campus a couple
miles out of town, just as described in that article.

Admittedly, there are not many kids biking to school here, and I
wouldn't be surprised if they have some rule against it. (There are
school board members who should be demoted to janitors.) But there are
hundreds of kids who walk to school, and that would certainly stop if
they had to trudge two miles or more. In any case, the vote against the
school levy was overwhelming.

The two schools that are within my little neighborhood both suffer from
packs of SUVs parked with their engines running, holding suburban moms
picking up their suburban princes and princesses. Some kids are not
only too delicate to walk or bike, they're even too delicate to ride in
a school bus.

BTW, these schools are all accessible by low traffic streets and
no-traffic cut-through paths. The few high traffic streets can be
reasonably avoided, or crossed at traffic lights with crosswalks.

I just checked and it was 2 mi exactly from my home to my high school. But admittedly no one else but me was walking.

On Sunday, May 21, 2017 at 9:10:05 AM UTC-5, wrote:

I just checked and it was 2 mi exactly from my home to my high school. But admittedly no one else but me was walking.


I live 3/4 mile from my local grocery store. Easy walk, even winter is not bad. 2 miles from my Home Depot and Target. Takes more effort and planning to walk there. Some cross country walking through fields. I'm not sure I would want to walk the 2 miles each way too often. Easy to bike these distances.