Greetings
I am making slow progress on kids cycling to school in Arlington. At Thursday’s Community Relations meeting in the superintendent's office we confirmed that there are some very challenging and extremely concerning anti-cycling attitudes among the Arlington principals, the superintendent and the crossing guards. While our group handled ourselves very diplomatically, they all firmly believe that, despite our best arguments and most documented and reliable sources and successful national Safe Routes to School models, that Arlington is way to dangerous for kids to cycle to school. They will not allow bike racks on school property for that would send the wrong message that they support cycling to school which they currently do not. These attitudes are out of synch and touch with most surrounding towns who are making progress with kids cycling to schools.
They said that they are “open” to cycling but want Arlington to FIRST make changes in infrastructure, add police, crossing guards and closes streets around the school before they will sanction cycling. We all know how unrealistic this request is, how long it would take and how much ground cycling to school will loose if we wait for such changes to occur. We cannot wait for perfection to make progress on more liveable streets. There is so much we can do now and getting more people safely cycling and walking around Arlington is one of them.
Cycling and walking to school as part of the Safe Routes to School program is part of the solution to reduce traffic around the schools but we may be facing a losing battle: SRTS is losing participants, content and clout in Arlington.
In this meeting, we discovered that one source of their anti-cycling sentiment stems from a memo from Nate Levenson in which he totally misquotes and misrepresents a statement from Mass Bike stating that the superintendent and the director of Mass Bike determined that Arlington was not safe for cycling. This meeting, as I suspected, never occurred and these statements were never made by Mass Bike. On the contrary Dorie Clark, ABAC and I were working very hard throughout 2005 (as we are now) to educate and inspire the principals and superintendent towards a change in attitude and policy with regards to cycling. After all the work we had done, I was never asked to attend any final meeting nor was informed about the decision. When I met again with Hardy's previous principal Carmody in the early spring of 2006 to launch an after school bicycle safety program, it suddenly became “sorry no cycling, case closed”. One school committee source tells me that Mr Carmody’s views stemmed from previous Superintendent Kay Donovan who was openly and adamantly anti-cycling. Her anti-cycling legacy and misinformation unfortunately prevails and is preventing progress throughout the Arlington Schools
SPINNING FORWARD:
We wish to thank the School committee for making this a priority! We will be presenting a PILOT cycling program to the School committee on December 16th and need support from as many residents as possible. If you would like to attend this meeting or offer support for our initiatives, please email me your name and email address and I will keep you updated on our progress in my growing list of Arlington Cycling to School advocates. Tell your friends too.
At this Thursday’s meeting we requested that the principals and superintendent remain neutral on cycling to school throughout the pilot process and refrain from making any more anti cycling statements. If you are a parent in East Arlington, please write and/ or tell the principals (and cc school committee member Jeff Thielman, Sue Scheffler and Ron Spangler) that you support kids and parents cycling safely to school and ask them to encourage more walking to school until we have a cycling program in place. Please ask them to refrain from negative comments about cycling and instead demand that cars respect the speed and parking laws around the schools. Tell them to ask parents not to not park on the streets surrounding the schools if at all possible. We ask that crossing guards report drivers breaking the law to the police. Spread the word: YES WE CAN (cycle to school) The principals agree that they cannot tell us how to get to school. For those of us who are not in walking distance, cycling is a viable option. I travel 3 miles by bike to bring my kids to three schools.
Winter is coming, many more cars will surround the schools. Children that are walking and those that choose to safely bike with their parents, are in serious danger due to car traffic.
ALL Principals must all do their part to REDUCE traffic around the schools and increase healthy habits for our kids and the planet. They must be a part of the solution, not the problem. We need to make them accountable too.
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