by Margaret Desjardins

Last Friday, September 28th, the Baldwin School community initiated the first Police-escorted Walk/Ride Day Bike Train in Cambridge. Parents and students (including kindergarteners) started at Mass Ave and Route 16 and rode south to the Maria Baldwin School (formerly the Agassiz School) at Sacramento and Oxford Streets.

Janie Katz-Christy, co- founder and director of the Green Streets Initiative reported that “80% of Baldwin students arrived Friday via "green means:" 43% by bus, 27% walked and 10% biked -- about a 25% increase in the number of those who go green, compared to a regular day."

Katz-Christy co-founded the Green Streets Initiative in Cambridge in March 2006 but it has gained such popularity that now Somerville, Medford, and Portland (Maine) are participating. Schools, individuals, businesses and organizations give their cars a rest the last Friday of every month, and “get around green” that day by bike, bus, T, carpool, or on foot.

According to a 2006 report by the EPA (Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the U.S. Transportation Sector:1990-2003) the U.S. transportation sector emits 27% of national greenhouse gases, and private cars comprise 62% of that ouput. Trading our cars for our feet or our bikes reduces our impact on global climate change.

Walk/Ride participants wear green to promote and publicize their cause. This has an added benefit; an expanding list of retailers offer free or discounted items to these green participants, as everyone wants to do their part to help the environment and the community.

In 1969 half of all children walked or biked to school (Transportation Characteristics of Schoolchildren, Report #4. Washington, D.C.: Nationwide Personal Transportation Study, Federal Highway Admin, July 1972.), but by 2001 that number had dropped to 15%
see reference.

Nearly 20% of children ages 6-11 are overweight (F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America: United States 2006). Walk/Ride Days are an opportunity to include exercise in everyday tasks.

The next Walk/Ride day will be October 26th. For more information, contact Green Streets at www.GoGreenStreets.org.

Does YOUR school have a Green Initiative? Tell us what your school does to reduce its impact on Global Warming -- yes, YOU! Post a comment!