The Editor,
Re: "Driving kids to school a traffic and environmental hazard," News, Aug. 22.
After reading Alan Campbell's article about the issue of traffic jams caused by parents driving their kids to school, it caused me to reflect on my own childhood growing up in Richmond.
Attending elementary school in Richmond during the 1980s, if you were late for school, you had to lock your bike to another kid's bike because there was no room along the bike racks.
Mom or Dad drive you to school? No way! Once you were in the third grade, the idea of a parent driving you to school was considered unnecessary or even embarrassing.
These days, you'll find the bike racks are virtually empty at most schools while the parking lots are jammed with parents dropping their kids off, even at the high school level. Richmond neighbourhoods were built over the past several decades with the plan that almost every square block had an elementary school, so children didn't have to walk or ride their bikes across a major street in order to get to school safely.
What changed over the past generation? There are a lot more cross-boundary students with parents seeking the "right" school for their kids and willing to drive the extra distance. Many parents who only live a five-minute walk away from the school will drive their kids because there are much higher levels of anxiety with a child walking or riding their bikes in heavier traffic. Of course, the irony seems to be lost on them since they are contributing to the supposed danger they're trying to avoid.
Neighbourhood kids walking or riding bikes to school together without a parent used to be a rite of passage and a first taste of independence. It helped build friendships beyond the schoolyard, gave us a sense of responsibility, confidence and a feeling of trust being handed down to us by our parents.
It's odd how those simple life lessons seem to have fallen by the wayside.
Ken Moffatt Richmond
