So, I'm up here in Calgary, near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in the Great White North, in this month dubbed Snowtember. But that was so last week, if you catch my drift. Our mayor, Naheed Nenshi, has issued a challenge to students:
Nenshi encourages kids to walk, bike, rollerblade or even pogo stick to school, in an attempt to increase childhood activity and decrease school zone vehicle congestion.
Yeah, that'll work.
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You're just a short pogo hop past the orange croissant for more.
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Let's go for a short drive, shall we?
This was the view yesterday afternoon, at the time a K-through-9 school in my neighborhood was letting out for the day, around 3:30PM. There's a pause in the middle, lasting nearly a minute. That's due to the school patrol kids, with adult assistance, stopping traffic to let pedestrians cross the street I was about to turn onto. I normally do my best to avoid this route, at this time of the day. I timed this particular drive in order to record the video.
If you notice a speed limit sign "50", that's km/hour, not mph. No, I'm not driving at 50 mph through a developed neighborhood with kids out and about.
It was a pleasant afternoon, about 22C/72F. A sharp contrast to one week earlier, with sub-freezing temperatures, and heavy snow blanketing everything in sight. In this clip there are cars, lots of them, lining both sides of the main street as well as side streets. The majority of these vehicles are SUVs, and nearly all of them have the motor running. They are driven by parents (mostly moms), picking up their kids after school.
This was actually a fairly light pickup day, as things go. On days when the weather isn't so nice, which is often during school season, the traffic jam can be much, much worse. As someone who happens to live a couple of streets deeper within the community, I know that this time of day is to be avoided if at all possible. Getting in and out of the neighborhood can take a while.
Oh I know, I shouldn't be Mr. Curmudgeon and begrudge the extra time it takes me to get around when the streets are clogged with cars picking up kids. I just can't help but think of all the energy being wasted, and the fumes being pumped into the air, by all these parked cars. And I've seen where some of them go. On almost any given occasion, I've had a freshly loaded car pull out in front of me, literally drive two short blocks, and then pull into the home driveway. I have seen the reverse in the mornings: a freshly unloaded car drives the same two blocks back home.
Every day, it seems, the congestion spreads further away from the school grounds. The competition for parking is ever increasing, and so they come earlier and earlier to get a good spot. Those that come later, are parking even further away from the school, as the number of cars doing the same thing continues to rise. Because their little ones don't know where to find the car, the parents have to get out and walk to the school entrance to meet them. In the narrow confines of the street already lined on both sides with cars, you can be sure there are doors opening suddenly, and parents darting out to cross the street without looking. I'm not making this up. Swinging a door wide open suddenly into traffic seems to be quite the thing to do.
One day last week, during the snow storm, a woman wearing a heavy parka with a hood darted out from between two cars on my right, and ran across the street toward the school, without looking. Fortunately, I was then moving at only a fraction of the posted speed limit, and I was able to stop quickly, avoiding running her over. They particularly do this when the weather is bad (winter can be extremely nasty here), but also when it is good. And that's just the adults.
The kids, for some reason, seem to be better behaved in that regard. Maybe the safety concepts are drilled into them, inside the building. Maybe some of the adults need a remedial course in traffic safety.
Now, to be fair, not all of those cars are coming and going from just a couple of blocks away. Some of them do have a longer path to home. This particular school is Catholic, and there are not as many of those scattered around, certainly not in every community. There are school buses, but generally only a few of them at a time; there are not mass numbers of kids being bussed.
There are safety and environmental issues with so many cars. But what sparked this diary is the mayor's publicity move last week, encouraging walking to school for the benefits of exercise.
I'll let the mayor speak:
(BTW the clips of the kids biking to school in the snow are hilarious. The video seems to have been shot before, and then during, last week's big snow).
The response on the Walkchallenge Facebook page is somewhat less than overwhelming. From this metropolitan area of about a million and a quarter people, a small handful have so far posted to the page. Of those, as one might expect, pretty much all are in favor of walking.
One respondent points out the danger of crossing a particularly busy roadway by small kids, or even adults. And that's a fair point. But then one of the mayor's staff responds to that, saying that an option is to drive the kids past the busy roadway, and have them walk the rest of the way to school from a safe drop-off point.
This is a very spread-out town, and cars are kings here. There are city buses, and light rail rapid transit, but they don't seem to go where people actually want to go. You can't there from here without transferring between multiple buses and trains. Colleges and universities have access to transit, but schools where the little ones go are not built anywhere near the stations.
You drive to survive. Never mind that parking fees downtown (if you can find a spot, that is) are among the highest in all of North America, second only to New York City.
We love our cars here.
I drive a Toyota Corolla. Sometimes I feel like I'm in the smallest thing on any given block. I'm constantly surrounded by SUVs. And Hummers, don't forget the Hummers. There's enough of those around to impress even the Governator.
I started my life in a rural area, just outside a city in Ontario Canada, but just far enough that it was necessary to take a school bus to school. Walking wasn't an option back then, because school was several miles away, and part of that distance was along unpaved gravel roads.
When I reached the 7th grade, our family moved a bit inward to the city, into a subdivision that had both an elementary school and a high school. For the several years we lived there, I walked to school, like every other kid. Because that's what we did. Oh, I whined and begged for a ride to school on days when the weather was really bad, and occasionally I got a ride. But those were exceptions, for particularly nasty days.
Things are different now. People don't think twice about driving their kids every day, whether the distance is short or long.
It seems like, around here at least, we all practically live in our damn cars.
TOP COMMENTS
September 16, 2014
Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU
when you find that proficient comment.
From BeninSC, two entries this evening:
I was very happy with the fine dialogue in last night's Top Comments diary, but two comments really jumped out at me.
First, gizmo59 posted a most insightful comment based on something he read - an excerpt from E.O. Wilson's new book, The Meaning of Human Existence. Great stuff!
And, then, FogCityJohn answered lotac's question about a great place for Pho in San Francisco with a wonderfully detailed and generous comment! I'd love to go to those suggestions, too, if only I lived closer!
From your diarist, lotac:
In the diary by TeamSarah4Choice "Saudis Lobbied John McCain & Lindsey Graham to sell War", Adam B recalls the words of a different Graham regarding the Saudis.
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TOP PHOTOS
September 15, 2014
Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt™ below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
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