News Release
For Immediate Release
Contact: Beth Gorman (520) 740-3343
Tucson, Arizona (August 8, 2006) – School days
are here and so is the traffic congestion surrounding schools
as parents drop off their children. Traffic congestion increases
air pollution around school yards and provides the potential
for accidents to occur. The Pima County Department of Environmental
Quality (PDEQ) is encouraging parents and students to find a
better way to school this year. Walking and bicycling with children
to school will reduce traffic congestion, save money on gasoline,
reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve air quality at schools.
Pima County and the City of Tucson Departments of Transportation
(DOT) are providing free bicycling classes to encourage bicycle
safety.
“A cold engine emits 50 percent more pollution and vehicles
that are idling can emit 20 times more pollution than moving
vehicles,” said Beth Gorman, Program Manager with PDEQ. “So,
if those short trips to drop children off at neighborhood schools
can be eliminated, we’ll save on gasoline usage and our
air will be healthier to breathe,” continued Gorman. Estimates
are that 24 percent of morning traffic is attributed to parents
driving their children to school.
In addition to other benefits, replacing car trips with walking
or bicycling will encourage physical activity and combat obesity
in both parents and children. According to the “International
Walk to School Day” website, lack of physical activity
is a major cause of chronic illness and death for our country’s
adults. Being overweight can cause health problems like diabetes
during childhood and research shows that physically inactive
kids are more likely to grow up to be physically inactive adults – and
are therefore at high risk for obesity and related illnesses.
Organizing activities like a walking school bus or a bicycle
train will encourage parents and children in neighborhoods near
schools to skip the car trip and walk or bike to school.
A walking school bus is a group of children walking to school
with one or more adults. It can be as informal as two families
taking turns walking their children to school to as structured
as a route with meeting points, a timetable and a regularly rotated
schedule of trained volunteers. A variation on the walking school
bus is the bicycle train, in which adults supervise children
riding their bikes to school.
Parents often cite safety issues
as one of the primary reasons they are reluctant to allow their
children to walk or bike to school. Providing adult supervision
may help reduce those worries for families who live within walking
or bicycling distance to school.
Pima County and the City of
Tucson DOTs are offering free “Bicycle
Driver” classes and free safety gifts to help the public
gain an understanding of how to safely operate a bicycle in a
variety of situations. The class is open to those 14 and older,
with children ages 10-13 OK with a parent. Call 740-6403 for
class information.
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