Raising healthy children in a healthy community should be a goal that everyone can agree on, from parents, community members, the City, and School Board. Walking and biking safely around our City improves our health, creates community, and inches us closer to sustainability goals. Last week I participated in the South End Bike Bus, spearheaded by Mike Alberici - a Concord Elementary School teacher, resident, and parent. The bike bus is for Abbot-Downing Students, but it is part of an organic, grassroots effort supporting community, wellness, and sustainability.
The website, Southendbikebus.org lists the route, rules, and core values:
To promote a healthy lifestyle by biking to school with friends
To guide students and families in a safe and fun environment on the way to school
To take cars off the roads and save fossil fuels.
37 of us rode on a morning with a RealFeel temperature of 35 degrees.
This spring, the Concord School District received 40 bikes (20 balance bikes & 20 pedal bikes) for their “learn to ride” program. Kindergarten and 1st-grade students now learn how to ride bikes as part of their Physical Education curriculum. In a public/private partnership, the Central New Hampshire Bicycling Coalition, S&W Sports, the Brain Injury Association of NH and a donor to Concord-Lake Sunapee Rail Trail made this possible. Volunteers built the storage racks and assembled the bikes.
Last fall, Rundlett Middle School started a new bicycle education program with a Riding For Focus grant that provided 30 bikes, 30 helmets, curriculum, and teacher training to promote cycling as an outlet for students to improve their cognitive, physical, and socio-emotional well-being.
These recent strides in health, wellness, and sustainability are the result of policies created by the City and community members.
The Energy Chapter of our Master Plan Energy Goals encourages Concord residents, businesses and institutions to reduce their carbon footprint. A recent analysis of our 2019 emission showed transportation is the largest source of Concord’s municipal and communitywide emissions. In order to reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled and dependence on fossil fuels, the policies and objectives specify:
Promoting walking and bicycle commuting throughout the City.
Encouraging children to walk and bike to school through an aggressive safe route to school program and adequate sidewalks and bicycle routes around all schools.
Continuing to work with the School Districts to implement the Safe Routes to Schools Program.
In 2013, a Citywide Safe Routes to School Task Force presented project identifications and findings. They reviewed population clusters, identified where students already walk/bike frequently or could walk/bike more safety if improvements were made, considered socioeconomics of each neighborhood and school. The Task Force developed project evaluation criteria to determine if they had the funding and neighborhood support for each project and the end result would have a positive economic impact on the neighborhood while making it physically safer for kids to walk/bike to school. As for Rundlett, the Task Force recommended increasing safe opportunities to enter school from neighborhoods north and west of school by constructing a 285 linear foot walking path from Cypress Street to the back entrance of the school.
From 2017-2022, Safe Routes to School was touted as an important goal when considering property - and one of the reasons for ruling out Broken Ground. Image is from the May 5, 2022 Community Outreach - Zoom.
However, the School Board voted for a remote location on raw land where only 6% of Rundlett students live within a safe walking radius, compared to 26% at the current location.
Imagine the joy of learning to ride in Kindergarten, riding with your community to school as a bike bus, and then being sentenced to taking a bus to a car-centric neighborhood with no amenities within safe walking distance. A middle school at Broken Ground exponentially increases the traffic of personal vehicles, buses, and greenhouse gas emissions.
By choosing to relocate the middle school to Broken Ground, the School Board has shown that they are not looking out for the health, wellness, or sustainability of our community. It's time to place that authority back in the hands of the voters. Vote yes on amendments one and two which require a majority of voters to approve a school relocation or the sale of land.
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