Bicycling

Streetfilms Portland Week: Safe Routes to School

As someone who lives in Brooklyn and pedals a two-year-old to daycare three days a week, I find the scenes depicted in this video to be completely incredible. There is no question in my mind that the future of New York City has to look something like this. --Editor

By Aaron Naparstek

3:40 PM EST on November 3, 2006

Portland’s Safe Routes to School
A Clarence Eckerson Streetfilm
Running time: 4:14
Download: 16.40 MB

The students and faculty of Sunnyside Environmental have an entire curriculum dedicated to bike safety and the use of non-motorized transportation between school and home. Children as young as second graders are able to ride their bicycles to school solo thanks to neighborhood traffic calming and an agressive Safe Routes to School program. Kids also arrive by foot, skateboard, and scooter. In the morning, it is just an incredible scene seeing scores of parents drop off their children by bike — some carrying as many as three children.

Aaron Naparstek

Aaron Naparstek is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparstek's journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. He was also one of the original cast members of the "War on Cars" podcast. You can find more of his work on his website.