Point Reyes Light - October 5, 2000
Valley students all walk or bike to school for a day
In celebration of "International Walk to School Day," Go Geronimo, the San Geronimo Valley's alternative transportation program, encouraged Lagunitas School District students to walk or ride bikes to class on Wednesday, which left the district's parking lots nearly empty.
By some estimates, as much as 30 percent of morning traffic in Marin County is attributed to parents driving their children to school. According to the Centers for Disease Control, less than 10 percent of children walk or bike to school nowadays, down from 65 percent 30 years ago.
The Marin County Bicycle Coalition has received a $50,000 federal grant to document school-related transportation, develop walking and bicycle safety curriculums, propose traffic restrictions that protect school children, and offer incentives to get students out of their parents' cars.
The bicycle coalition plans to start a "Safe Routes to Schools" demonstration program in the San Geronimo Valley, Fairfax, parts of San Rafael, and Mill Valley.
Children deserve to walk "We believe this program can make a tremendous difference in the quality of life in Marin communities," said Debbie Hubsmith, the bicycle coalition's executive director. "This program provides an alternative which not only increases health and safety for the students, but diminishes the bottlenecks drivers face in these areas daily. Today's children deserve the same benefits we enjoyed when we were young."
Each child who walked or biked to Lagunitas or San Geronimo schools on Wednesday earned a coupon for a free ice cream at lunch.
However, the possibility of more bike lanes getting added to local roadways in the near future seems remote. Although improvements are pending for the Tomales-Petaluma Road and the Point Reyes-Petaluma Road, the roads are simply too narrow for bike lanes, explained Public Works' Jack Baker.
"The road drops off steeply," he said. "It would need major retaining walls."
Indeed, widening the two roads would require formal environmental-impact reports, the process for which is so long that the existing funds to improve the roads would no longer be available, according to Supervisor Steve Kinsey's office.