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Allerton

Streetfilms: Learning Bike Safety in the Schoolyard

3:02 PM EDT on October 24, 2008

Robin Urban Smith files this report from P.S. 76 in the Bronx, where students wrapped up a month-long bike safety course with a playground "rodeo" on Wednesday. This June, Michael Needham Jr., a fifth-grader at the school, lost his life after a speeding car hit him while he was riding with friends near the Allerton library.

Watching this Streetfilm made me wonder if bike safety can be worked into gym classes throughout the city. It also brought to mind the words of former Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa:

In Bogotá, our goal was to make a city for all the children. Themeasure of a good city is one where a child on a tricycle or bicyclecan safely go anywhere. If a city is good for children, it will be goodfor everybody else. Over the last 80 years we have been making citiesmuch more for cars' mobility than for children's happiness.

Ben Fried
Ben Fried started as a Streetsblog reporter in 2008 and led the site as editor-in-chief from 2010 to 2018. He lives in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, with his wife.

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