Schools right next to interchanges

[1995hoo]

.....

My wife lived a few blocks away from her elementary school, across the main street, and walked to school with her mom. She'll tell the story of when school officials told her mom that she needs to be more independent, and walk alone. The first day, she went missing. Her mom was livid. She simply went to a friend's house so all was fine, but even the idea of letting a student walk a few blocks by themselves today, across a busy road, is unheard of in most suburban districts.

Heh. When I was in fifth and sixth grade (and my brother was in third through sixth, as he is younger than I am), we were in the "walking zone" for the second elementary school I attended. The route used a gravel path through the woods, then down a quiet street with no sidewalks. It was fine.

Nowadays, the kids in the neighborhood where we lived (and my mom still lives) ride a bus. If you live in the part of the neighborhood where we did, it's a shorter walk to school than it is up to the front of the neighborhood where the school bus stops (the distance is comparable, but going to the bus stop involves going up a big hill that going to the school does not). Of course I doubt most of the kids make that walk–I'm sure their parents drive them. Before he retired, my father used to grouse about the mothers parking side-by-side, blocking the street, so they could talk without getting out of their minivans.