Across the country, fewer kids are walking or biking to school. Meck County hopes to bring it back

CHARLOTTE — With twin nine-year-olds, a seven-year-old, and a four-year-old, Jamie Sunde’s mornings are dedicated to getting the kids ready for school as efficiently as possible.

She packs the backpacks into the vehicle, makes sure there are plenty of accessible snacks and water in the pockets, makes sure everyone’s strapped in and has their helmet, then she pedals off. She said it’s been her routine since 2019, when she invested in an electric-assist cargo bike.

“It was quite the reward once we were able to do that because we weren’t fighting kids to get in the vehicle, but also we were skipping car pool lines and didn’t have to wait for an hour or so to pick up at the bell or drop off,” she said.

Sunde considers herself lucky. She lives just outside the zone for walkers at her kids’ school but was able to work with the school to come up with a plan to bike.

“Getting these kids involved with biking has done a lot for them to learn independence and safety and socialization and lots of other things,” she said.

Sunde said her route takes about seven to ten minutes and primarily takes her through neighborhood roads, but she said she does have to cross Park Rd. which tends to be the most dangerous part of the trip.

“Because people speed a little bit at the intersection of Hillside and Park Road,” she said. “That’s the only really dicey area but then we’re riding along the road on the hillside and there’s no bike lanes between where we go and here and even like turning left from in front of the school onto the hillside, cars don’t really pay attention and let bikes go.”

Michael Eastwood, the Safe Routes to School Coordinator with Mecklenburg County Public Health, is working to change that. He works in partnership with Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools and the Charlotte DOT to address the barriers that discourage families who might want to walk or bike from giving it a try.

“Some schools are blessed with greenways nearby and you know big props to parks and rec because they are expanding greenway opportunities,” he said. “They do work closely with us and CMS to look for connection points.”

Eastwood explains, if there’s a greenway near a school, the district, parks and rec and CDOT look for ways to provide, safe, easy-to-follow paths to and from the greenways.

“The biggest thing is to plan your route ahead, Sometimes the most straight route is not the safest route,” he said. “Look for where are the crosswalks, where are there light controlled intersections so cars are going to stop and give pedestrians right of way?”

Across the Country, there’s been a precipitous decline in the number of students walking or biking to school. According to the national Safe Routes to School Campaign, 48% of children between 5 and 17 walked or biked to school in 1969. By 2009, that number was down to 13% , and in 2017 it was closer to 10%.

Their survey data cites traffic-related danger as the second biggest barrier parents identify, but the biggest is distance. Many families now live further from schools or no longer attend their neighborhood schools.

WSOC spoke with several parents for this story who expressed this concern. One had walked with their kids for years but now their neighborhood school is magnate and they can no longer attend. Another said they plan to walk through their kids’ elementary school career, but the middle school is just too far.

Eastwood said he hears similar concerns all the time and is working on developing alternative options at many of these schools like walking groups or bike trains out of parks closer to the schools.

“So we’re not traveling 13 miles, we’re traveling two miles but we’ve broken up that trip,” he said. “So we have physical activity to and from. We’re out of the car line we’re out of traffic for that time.”

Eastwood also argues these bike trains and walking groups can make it safer for students and parents no matter where they start, while potentially helping neighborhoods connect and share the responsibility of helping their kids get to school.

“Getting more families involved helps visibility so when we are on sidewalks or we’re crossing roads, drivers notice a group of kids versus one child,” he said. “We want to see more families working together, walking, riding to school sharing that responsibility, sharing that joy.”

For Sunde, the joy and responsibility have been the primary motivator. She said she wants her kids to grow up with healthy mobility habits and an understanding that they don’t always need a car to get around.

“There’s big environmental impacts to what we’re doing,” she said. “If we continue to show that interest and show that it’s possible and teach the kids there’s a potential for the infrastructure to really support this in the future.”

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