Walking School Bus Encourages Exercise, Reduces Traffic

Photos: Barbara Ball McClure

Safe Routes to School (SRTS) and parent volunteers from area elementary schools are reviving the tradition of children walking to school in groups.

According to Todd Buckingham, East Lansing’s SRTS School Community Organizer, there has been a parent led “Walking School Bus” active at Whitehills Elementary school on “walking Wednesdays” since the beginning of the school year. More routes were added at the other area schools after spring break, when the weather warmed up and made walking a more attractive option.

Buckingham told ELi that focusing on Wednesdays as a walking day was an easy way to make “a small change,” and incorporate walking into the routine for children who were used to being driven to school.

The primary goals of the program are to encourage physical activity in children and to reduce traffic around the schools for increased safety. Children who live too far to walk may be dropped at a “walking bus stop” rather than being dropped off at school, said Buckingham. He adds that even a quarter of a mile walk would be helpful in reducing traffic around the schools during the busy morning drop off time.

Walking to school used to be much more common. According to the Safe Routes to School’s website only 12% of students currently walk to school, compared to 48% in 1969.

Long time Bailey neighborhood resident Barbara Ball-McClure, who lives just a few doors down from her childhood home, told ELi about the route she and her friends used to take to school, winding through the neighborhood to collect additional friends along the way. In addition to the before and after school trips, she and her friends walked home for lunch time as well. She estimates that their route took about 20 minutes.

In contrast to the informality of a few friends meeting at each other’s houses, the Walking School Bus routes operate like busses with “stops” at street corners along the way where children wait to be picked up by the “bus” of students and parent volunteers. The Whitehills and Donley routes have up to 30 children on some days by the time the crowd gets to school.

As an added incentive Safe Routes to School is supplying Walking School Bus participants with bus-shaped tokens that students can collect on a shoe string tied to their backpacks for each day they walk with their group.

Rebecca McAndrews has been organizing the Marble walking route since the beginning of April, and has 14-20 kids who walk with her every Wednesday. She says it’s been a fun way to meet new kids from the neighborhood, and that it encourages her to make walking a priority even when the weather isn’t the best. She told me that another Marble parent has recently started a Friday route.

Buckingham said that SRTS has applied for a grant for next year with hopes that they can continue, and possibly expand the Walking School Bus program.