A couple of years ago, I was excited that my daughter had snagged a spot in our catchment-area French Immersion school. I eagerly attended the info night with her only to be severely let down when a large portion of the evening was devoted to how and where it was acceptable to drop off your child… by car. There was no encouragement to walk or bike to school, at least nothing that was memorable. I left the space feeling a bit numb about the public school journey our family was about to embark on for the next 16 years.

As an educator myself, it disheartened me that this place of education was not promoting a better solution. They should have been marketing it hard!

My then preschooler commuting home from the neighbourhood preschool on her Strider in winter.

Fast forward a couple of years and we are now embarking on our second year at this school after a pretty wildly successful year of almost exclusively commuting actively for ten months, in spite of having quite possibly the longest winter ever with the most cumulative snow on record!

Mindset

The night of the orientation was the night I resolved to never drive the kids to school.

Never say never, there will always be some time where it just makes sense to drive, but most of the time it will absolutely make more sense for me to walk or bike.

I walked 1.2 km (uphill) to elementary school as a kid, did you? It was too far to walk as of middle school, when I carpooled, caught the school bus, or biked along the highway.

When my eldest started preschool, I imposed a rule on myself that I would self-propel at least one way each school day: drop-off or pick-up. This break-in period helped me to wrap my head around including more movement into my daily routine even with two young children (one who was an infant at the time).

I tried to embrace a growth mindset by setting small, achievable goals, convincing myself that if many other parts of the world could commute to school and work using their bodies, that I could get my kid the 2 km to preschool. I also had a brand new baby and a dog that needed walking; if we did not walk to school then the probability of getting out of the house again for a dog walk was slim!

My then baby has now started her second year of preschool and we have almost exclusively walked or biked both ways. It’s a wonderful experience and a beautiful journey, for which I am grateful. I have also come to realize how much money these little trips save us, which is very important as we have worked hard to make me being a full-time parent a financially viable option.

Perceived danger

There is this misconception that walking or biking to school is dangerous and that a car is safer. In fact, “the single biggest danger in a Canadian child’s life is the car.” And by promoting the car as a way of life we are setting them up for a more sedentary existence which also opens them up to a host of health and well-being issues, such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, dementia, and some cancers: physical inactivity is “a global pandemic.” This article goes on to say that active transportation is known to help 25 chronic conditions that Canadians are facing.

Did you know that only 9% of Canadian kids get the recommended level of activity per day? 9%! That scares me for them and their future. Selfishly, it also scares me as a taxpayer.

We are so numb to the risks we take every time we get in a car and we have blown out of proportion how risky it is to ride a bike. Yet, unintentional accidents — most of which are preventable (incidents, not accidents )— are the №1 killer of Canadian children and youth, with motor vehicles being at the top of the list for these “accidents.”

Most children live within an appropriate distance to walk or ride a bike to school. It would be great if school boards and cities were more concerned with helping to promote these active modes of travel, helping to raise the next generation of active commuters, than constantly designing roads for people in cars.

The drive to our school is 2.5 km, one way. For our family, this means 10 km per school day of which there are usually 183 per school year. Using the federal government rate for travel of $0.55/km, this is how much it costs me to drive my kid to school: 2.5 km x 4 x 183 days x $0.55/km = about $1000/school year, at least. So, we bike and save money. Lots of it as far as I am concerned. I have thought a lot about these numbers and it really does make a huge difference for our single income family.

Our savings are a drop in the bucket compared to the potential financial effect on our nationally funded healthcare system on the whole, not to mention our municipal budgets where policing is a huge cost — a lot of policing deals with incidents and accidents amongst cars!

Cycling as a means to get around in a city is an extremely fiscally conservative act.

Time and energy

It’s a challenge to squeeze in proper, heart-pumping exercise with two young kids. I choose to spend a lot of time outside, but seven years into this parenting journey and my movement is still often at a toddling pace. This is where biking is a lifesaver for me. Instead of spending 91.5 hrs on my butt in my car this year, I will spend 200+ hours riding, walking, or jogging back and forth to school.

Great for me! Not only am I being active, I’m not in the position where I have to be sedentary in the car for extended periods of time and then find time to exercise on top of that (…as if).

Awesome for my big kid who will be mostly riding under her own steam, helping her to get her daily recommended exercise.

Amazing modeling for my youngest who is now often walking and biking herself to preschool.

That classifies as a win-win-win in my books. Yes, it does take me about 15 minutes to bike over to the elementary school (a little longer with my big kid riding), but in reality that is only about 5 minutes extra than most driving trips there due to timing of lights and traffic. And, I don’t have to warm up the car in the winter.