It's National Walk/Bike To School Century!

A beautiful September morning, 20 minutes before classes start, and no traffic jam to be seen. Instead, students are flocking to Princeton High School on bikes and on foot. Is it real? It was real yesterday morning. Had I missed the memo? Was it National Walk/Bike to School Day? No, that's October 8. Maybe there was an inspiring announcement in school the previous week about the benefits to self and future of walking/biking. Or maybe they all plumbed last year's depths of WalkablePrinceton. Has Princeton embraced unified action to slow climate change, inspired by the upcoming march in NY?

Whatever it was, it felt safe, for Princeton's streets, for the kids, and for the future. And it felt right--individual action and global realities suddenly aligned. But maybe I read too much into it. Maybe kids are riding and biking simply for the taste of independence, the pleasure of morning air, or because their parents have other things to do.

I've played the chauffeur at times, so can attest that a school day morning is the worst time to be crowding the streets with bulky cars. Drivers are in a hurry, perhaps not fully awake--I suspect some are still in their pajamas--and the dropoff in front of school is awkward. I drive up Franklin Ave, dismayed by the inefficiency of a cold engine while cars poke their noses out from side streets like ghosts in a game of Pacman. The best thing one can do for safety in Princeton is to take a car off the street.

Still, there are attractions to chauffeuring a kid to school. It's a quiet moment to talk, if one isn't too harried by the traffic. And maybe it's interpreted, by the kid at least, especially a middle schooler ambivalent about independence, as an expression of parental love.

But the sentiments inside the car are in conflict with the back end of the car, which is quietly feeding the atmosphere with the ghosts of climate future. (No, that's not a Prius exhaust pipe.)

So kudos to the kids who are participating in Walk/Bike To School Century, and one question for the schoolboard: Have you thought of getting more bike racks? They're packed to the max.