Western Albemarle has a bike rack this year:
Crozet Elementary’s is starting to fill up regularly.
I haven’t been to Brownsville or Henley this year to see if they have bike racks.
For some context as to how far our society has devolved in 30 years:
So anyway, I ran across this very interesting checklist of items to assess whether or not your child is prepared for all-day first grade. This book was first published in 1979, so I have to say it comes across as quite dated at times. So let’s take a look, shall we? The idea here is that about 10 yesses out of this list of 12 would indicate readiness for 1st grade.
1. Will your child be six years, six months or older when he begins first grade and starts receiving reading instruction?
…
6. Can he ride a small two-wheeled bicycle without helper wheels?
…
8. Can he travel alone in the neighborhood (four to eight blocks) to store, school, playground, or to a friend’s home?
– hat tip: Free Range Kids blog
* This is one of the last times hat I will write about walking or biking to school. The community is aware of the need to walk or bike to school, they are aware of the impediments, and it’s ultimately up to them as to whether they want to encourage their offspring to be independent and able to recover from a sweaty back.**
A 30 min walk is really no problem – I think it is more that the kids are used to AC and do not want to get sweaty/stinky walking to school. Backpacks do really make your back very wet under even moderately warm temps or if you sweat a lot. I know they use anti-persperant but that doesn’t address your back/chest/face etc.
** I am intentionally selecting a specific sentence from the above comment in order to make it more broadly relevant.
No bike rack at Brownsville that I have found.
According to those statistics, 25% of adults in Albemarle are obese, not the entire population. However I’d guess that if 25% of adults are obese then 25% of the youth are probably also obese.
Maybe these adults should be walking/biking their kids, or neighbor’s kids to school. It’d cut down on their obesity and “protect” the student’s on their commute to school.
Even if 25% of Albermale adults are obese I don’t think it has much to do with walking. If there is any doubt I refer you back to the parking space emergency
when the square lost several spaces. People want to ride. It would of been better to have on street parking on the new stretch of JGR than sidewalks…
Sadly, people as a whole have proven that they are too lazy to walk a mile when driving is an option.
The Square needs it parking, though, and it will be interesting to see who uses the new temporary parking lot.