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Reading this in the UK, I'm not sure if "walking to school on your own" is supposed to be a safe or unsafe reference point. I thought that children walking to

Reading this in the UK, I'm not sure if "walking to school on your own" is supposed to be a safe or unsafe reference point. I thought that children walking to school is unthinkable in the US because everything is designed for cars and public transit is inadequate/nonexistent. Made worse by endless suburbia stretching for miles. Someone please prove me wrong...

boutell 2y ago
I could say a lot, but I'll just point out that most American school districts provide school bus transportation.
Nextgrid 2y ago
> children walking to school is unthinkable in the US because everything is designed for cars and public transit is inadequate/nonexistent The hysteria around it is even worse than any of the actual dangers.
jebarker 2y ago
I live in the US and my daughter has/will have less than 1 mile to walk to every school she'll ever go to before college. Just an existence proof though!
- dhosek 2y ago
  And if she goes to a small residential school, she can keep that up at college. I attended the Claremont colleges where all six campuses (there’s a seventh now) of the schools lay within a one square mile area and if you were silly and only attended classes at your own school, your longest distance between dorm and classroom might be half a mile or so. Even a sprawling area like Tucson has a public elementary school in each square mile of residential neighborhood. I live in an inner-ring suburb of Chicago (Oak Park) which has 8 elementary schools (plus two middle schools) serving an area of 4.5 square miles. The middle schools require the longest travel distance of about 2.5 miles (taxicab metric). The high school serves a broader region, but that’s fairly typical in the Chicago area but the furthest students travel is about 4 miles (which is a bit less than the commute distance for the most distant students at the high school I attended as a kid one suburb to the south). My own grade school walk was less than half a mile. High school was three miles away for me, and I would get a ride or take the bus in the morning, but often walked home when there was less of a time pressure (sometimes I would walk with friends who lived in the opposite direction from me after school and then back to my own home which made my walk home five miles).
SamBam 2y ago
Depends very much where you are. In a medium city many/most middle schoolers are walking to school.

boutell 2y ago

I could say a lot, but I'll just point out that most American school districts provide school bus transportation.

Nextgrid 2y ago

> children walking to school is unthinkable in the US because everything is designed for cars and public transit is inadequate/nonexistent The hysteria around it is even worse than any of the actual dangers.

jebarker 2y ago

I live in the US and my daughter has/will have less than 1 mile to walk to every school she'll ever go to before college. Just an existence proof though!

dhosek 2y ago
And if she goes to a small residential school, she can keep that up at college. I attended the Claremont colleges where all six campuses (there’s a seventh now) of the schools lay within a one square mile area and if you were silly and only attended classes at your own school, your longest distance between dorm and classroom might be half a mile or so. Even a sprawling area like Tucson has a public elementary school in each square mile of residential neighborhood. I live in an inner-ring suburb of Chicago (Oak Park) which has 8 elementary schools (plus two middle schools) serving an area of 4.5 square miles. The middle schools require the longest travel distance of about 2.5 miles (taxicab metric). The high school serves a broader region, but that’s fairly typical in the Chicago area but the furthest students travel is about 4 miles (which is a bit less than the commute distance for the most distant students at the high school I attended as a kid one suburb to the south). My own grade school walk was less than half a mile. High school was three miles away for me, and I would get a ride or take the bus in the morning, but often walked home when there was less of a time pressure (sometimes I would walk with friends who lived in the opposite direction from me after school and then back to my own home which made my walk home five miles).

SamBam 2y ago

Depends very much where you are. In a medium city many/most middle schoolers are walking to school.