Wherever you live, but especially in the suburbs, you can relate– there’s a mess of traffic around school at drop-off time in the morning. Think about riding your kids to school on your bike, with a kid seat, a trailer or any of the amazing other conveyances that are on the market to cart kids. Or better yet teach your kids how to ride safely when they are old enough to navigate your streets. Wave bye to them in the morning with helmets and lights, and if your city or town doesn’t have great cycling infrastructure, it might be time for you to join or start a Complete Streets movement.
Getting anywhere near a school with a car is a monumental pain in the ass.
If you enjoy driving to the airport, going to the mall on Black Friday, or the abject futility of automotive clusterfucks in general, then by all means, driving a kid to school is for you. If, however, you’d rather undergo colonoscopy prep than sit in traffic with a bunch of self-absorbed parents all competing to see who can get their little darlings closest to the entrance, then you’ll do anything to avoid the soul-crushing indignity of this dehumanizing ritual. So while I’m a cyclist and therefore choose to circumnavigate the whole shitshow by bike, the truth of the matter is that if bicycles didn’t exist, I’d probably be up on the roof of my building in a wingsuit and a BabyBjörn.
Read more…