Biking to school becoming rare

It's not really news, because I've been hearing about it for years now, but the Examiner reported that

Nationwide, the number of kids who ride their bike or  walk to school has fallen dramatically since the 1970s.

“Thirty years ago, 66 percent of children walked or biked to school,” said Sharon Roerty of the National Center for Bicycling and Walking. “Today, 13 percent walk or bike to school.”

The article talks about the rise in childhood obesity, and (for reasons I'm not sure about) the number of children taking medication for attention deficit disorder and depression rising and also about the Safe Routes program. From what I've seen, a lot needs to be done to improve school accessibility. Magnolia Elementary School in Lanham has a path that connects it to a nearby apartment complex, which is good; but poles were inserted into the trail at the fence line that make it impossible to bike through. I have no idea why this was done, but that's the kind of thing that needs to be corrected.

One issue they fail to address is the cost of busing and driving 83% of students to school. On RPUS this issue is addressed in reference to an article about the shortage of bus drivers in Northern Virginia.

Fairfax, which has more than 165,000 students, is short about 180 bus drivers, and in Prince William, with about 66,200 students, needs about 60 drivers, officials said.

Since 2004, Loudoun County has been short 30 to 40 bus drivers despite advertising the jobs as far away as Winchester, Va., and West Virginia, school officials said.

And RPUS

...school campuses on the edges of towns require a massive school bus infrastructure (comparable to the deleterious impact of the replacement of streetcar transit systems with buses) requiring drivers, fuel, maintenance, and frequent replacement of buses. Not to mention the number of accidents involving school buses.

If 60% of students again started biking and walking, what impact would that have on traffic, air quality, health, school budgets, community? I used to bike to school and after school I would often go with my friends to the park to play football or basketball - instead of going straight home to watch TV and play video games. That seems like a better way for kids to spend their free time to me.