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It's quite normal in Europe and Scandinavia Probably more than 2/3 travel to the local school by bicycle, on foot, or by bus where I live in Norway. By bus be

It's quite normal in Europe and Scandinavia Probably more than 2/3 travel to the local school by bicycle, on foot, or by bus where I live in Norway. By bus because we are a rural kommune and some children live too far away to walk or cycle.

notch656a 4y ago
I pretty regularly biked ~10km to school starting around age 12 in middle America. It was dangerous including a 4 lane highway with no bike lanes. Given how fat the town is I grew up in I imagine it was safer in the long run than being inactive. I kind of wonder whether the fatalities would be worth the tradeoff if America encouraged biking to improve health at the cost of road carnage, but my inclination is to say yes even in the case of children.
- itronitron 4y ago
  It doesn't have to be that way. A four lane highway should have enough buffer to allow for a two way hike and bike path some distance from the cars. From what I have seen of the Netherlands, the bike paths are physically separated from the driving lanes (except side residential streets) so there is much less risk of a cyclist getting run over, side swiped, or cut off by a vehicle. Funding these would be easy, just drop the speed limit by 5mph and then automate the issuing of tickets to drivers exceeding the speed limit. Tell voters what the enforcement action is funding and that once the bike paths are finished the speed enforcement will ease off a bit (but not completely.)
  - kazen44 4y ago
    > From what I have seen of the Netherlands, the bike paths are physically separated from the driving lanes (except side residential streets) so there is much less risk of a cyclist getting run over, side swiped, or cut off by a vehicle. another very important factor in road safety in the netherlands is that bicycle users and car users are only mixed in low speed situation (less then 30km/h if i remember correctly) and that car drivers are always at fault for an accident with a bike with the exception of some very specific, hard to prove cases. Drivers education stresses this dearly, and because everyone in the netherlands grows up riding a bike, the social contract to keep bikers safe is very highly lived after.
munk-a 4y ago
It's also quite healthy for folks - biking to school (or work!) helps get the body moving in the morning much more so than getting a ride in. It's unfortunate that in north america the car is viewed as the default mode of transportation regardless of how short the trip may be.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  At the last job i actually went into an office for, I ended up biking because it was faster, the parking situation was so bad circling the lot and the neighborhood for a spot was just maddening. Riding my bike the few miles ended up being shorter time door to desk. Daily doses of outside and brief forced exercise were fringe benefits
geraldwhen 4y ago
In the US, most cities have bussing programs to intentionally give kids long commutes. The goal is to put students from poorer areas in better schools. Academic outcomes show this doesn’t help the students, but cities continue on regardless. What person thinks a 40 minute commute for a child is appropriate or healthy? I would be shocked if that worked for anyone.
- nnopepe 4y ago
  Why do they opt for such a silly scheme over improving the quality of local schools?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - munk-a 4y ago
    In a lot of parts of America school funding comes from local taxes so regions would need to band together to provide consistent funding across districts (which would cause the richer districts to lose funding money which pisses off rich people).
    - mcv 4y ago
      Yes, but why not change that system in order to provide more equal funding, instead of resorting to bussing?
      - munk-a 4y ago
        As I said, the rich people don't want it to happen... so it won't. Additionally, people literally buy houses for the school district - if you start to disrupt that system you'll potentially cause a shift in housing values and then you're up against both the rich and property owners and America can't win that fight with its current political system - money carries too loud of a vote.
    - geraldwhen 4y ago
hinkley 4y ago
Somewhere up that direction, or maybe in Denmark, I heard there's a bike tunnel, where the the ventilation system is set up such that you always have a tailwind. I want some of those here.
avgcorrection 4y ago
Normally I roll my eyes at these “here in Europe” accounts from one single country. But then on the other hand, that is the most European thing to do on the Internet.
- mathverse 4y ago
  Trust me it pisses me to no end to read that all the time. Europeans underestimate how different countries in Europe are.
null_object 4y ago
> It's quite normal in Europe and Scandinavia I live in central Stockholm and indeed walk to school with my youngest kid. But every single day I’m amazed and frankly enraged by the massive number of cars leaving kids right outside the school gates. And often driving off at high speed, checking phones for that “important” morning meeting. Frankly sick of reading this mythical ‘car-free’ Europe thing. Neighbors as close geographically as Sweden and Denmark can be light years apart in their cultural values.
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  Oh we have that too, far to many parents driving their children to school when the could easily have walked. Saying it's normal doesn't rule out exceptions, even frequent ones.

notch656a 4y ago

I pretty regularly biked ~10km to school starting around age 12 in middle America. It was dangerous including a 4 lane highway with no bike lanes. Given how fat the town is I grew up in I imagine it was safer in the long run than being inactive. I kind of wonder whether the fatalities would be worth the tradeoff if America encouraged biking to improve health at the cost of road carnage, but my inclination is to say yes even in the case of children.

itronitron 4y ago
It doesn't have to be that way. A four lane highway should have enough buffer to allow for a two way hike and bike path some distance from the cars. From what I have seen of the Netherlands, the bike paths are physically separated from the driving lanes (except side residential streets) so there is much less risk of a cyclist getting run over, side swiped, or cut off by a vehicle. Funding these would be easy, just drop the speed limit by 5mph and then automate the issuing of tickets to drivers exceeding the speed limit. Tell voters what the enforcement action is funding and that once the bike paths are finished the speed enforcement will ease off a bit (but not completely.)
- kazen44 4y ago
  > From what I have seen of the Netherlands, the bike paths are physically separated from the driving lanes (except side residential streets) so there is much less risk of a cyclist getting run over, side swiped, or cut off by a vehicle. another very important factor in road safety in the netherlands is that bicycle users and car users are only mixed in low speed situation (less then 30km/h if i remember correctly) and that car drivers are always at fault for an accident with a bike with the exception of some very specific, hard to prove cases. Drivers education stresses this dearly, and because everyone in the netherlands grows up riding a bike, the social contract to keep bikers safe is very highly lived after.

munk-a 4y ago

It's also quite healthy for folks - biking to school (or work!) helps get the body moving in the morning much more so than getting a ride in. It's unfortunate that in north america the car is viewed as the default mode of transportation regardless of how short the trip may be.

colechristensen 4y ago
At the last job i actually went into an office for, I ended up biking because it was faster, the parking situation was so bad circling the lot and the neighborhood for a spot was just maddening. Riding my bike the few miles ended up being shorter time door to desk. Daily doses of outside and brief forced exercise were fringe benefits

geraldwhen 4y ago

In the US, most cities have bussing programs to intentionally give kids long commutes. The goal is to put students from poorer areas in better schools. Academic outcomes show this doesn’t help the students, but cities continue on regardless. What person thinks a 40 minute commute for a child is appropriate or healthy? I would be shocked if that worked for anyone.

nnopepe 4y ago
Why do they opt for such a silly scheme over improving the quality of local schools?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- munk-a 4y ago
  In a lot of parts of America school funding comes from local taxes so regions would need to band together to provide consistent funding across districts (which would cause the richer districts to lose funding money which pisses off rich people).
  - mcv 4y ago
    Yes, but why not change that system in order to provide more equal funding, instead of resorting to bussing?
    - munk-a 4y ago
      As I said, the rich people don't want it to happen... so it won't. Additionally, people literally buy houses for the school district - if you start to disrupt that system you'll potentially cause a shift in housing values and then you're up against both the rich and property owners and America can't win that fight with its current political system - money carries too loud of a vote.
  - geraldwhen 4y ago

hinkley 4y ago

Somewhere up that direction, or maybe in Denmark, I heard there's a bike tunnel, where the the ventilation system is set up such that you always have a tailwind. I want some of those here.

avgcorrection 4y ago

Normally I roll my eyes at these “here in Europe” accounts from one single country. But then on the other hand, that is the most European thing to do on the Internet.

mathverse 4y ago
Trust me it pisses me to no end to read that all the time. Europeans underestimate how different countries in Europe are.

null_object 4y ago

> It's quite normal in Europe and Scandinavia I live in central Stockholm and indeed walk to school with my youngest kid. But every single day I’m amazed and frankly enraged by the massive number of cars leaving kids right outside the school gates. And often driving off at high speed, checking phones for that “important” morning meeting. Frankly sick of reading this mythical ‘car-free’ Europe thing. Neighbors as close geographically as Sweden and Denmark can be light years apart in their cultural values.

kwhitefoot 4y ago
Oh we have that too, far to many parents driving their children to school when the could easily have walked. Saying it's normal doesn't rule out exceptions, even frequent ones.