this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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Ah yes, because those are definitely viable options for everyone. Sarcasm aside, I'm not saying that these aren't the ideal modes of transport, but they simply aren't viable options for a large portion of people (including me).
In my city, the school buses only pick up kids that live more than 1 mile from the school. I live in a pretty dense (albeit still single-family) neighborhood, so almost everybody who goes to my kid's school lives too close to ride the bus.
It's amazing how the majority of the parents are apparently willing to spend five or ten minutes clearing the frost off their car windshield only to drive half a mile and then wait another ten or fifteen minutes in line at the car drop-off, when my entire round trip by bike is maybe ten minutes total.
Frankly, the "large portion of people" in my anecdote are just flat-out doing it wrong, to both society's and their own detriment.
The number of people who do have alternatives are a lot higher than many of them are willing to admit.
You can be investigated for neglect if you let your kids walk alone.
It happened in Maryland.
That's (unfortunately) true, but I'm not sure what you're getting at? My comment was about how parents should bike their kids to school (or walk with them) instead of driving them.
It doesn't really, but I'm sure there are parents who are driving to work anyway, and walking or biking the kids would take even more time than the
So I figured they'd just let the kids walk on their own because it's only a mile and it would save the parents some time. (Plus they don't have to go out in bad weather.) But then I remembered that even that isn't allowed anymore.
Then again, I'm old enough to have been a pedestrian latchkey kid and I'm pretty sure if I did that to my kids at the same age they'd be in the foster system.
Yeah people will use bikes or public transit if it's a better option for them than driving. But decades of carmaker lobbying, terrible zoning laws and bad urban design makes driving the only available option for most Americans.
Cities who invest in good public transit and sensible urban design always see a huge decrease in car traffic.