Schools move to eject cars from campuses
High schools and colleges are steering students away from cars to save money on gas, save the environment and promote physical fitness. The National Center for Safe Routes to School gets state and federal funding for kindergarten through eighth grade. A bill sponsored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., would fund high school programs. High schools' wider attendance boundaries, students' reduced physical activity and their desire to be self-reliant make funding necessary, he says. "We have over 100 million bikes that are sitting around in garages and basements and back porches," Blumenauer says. "When people start to use them, it can be transformational."
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Emory U. is doing great things with their Bike Emory program:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/08/10/college.bikes.ap/index.html
Forget parking, bike to class
Emory University is hoping to make bikes the must-have back-to-school accessory this fall.
The school is selling discounted bicycles to students and faculty, adding bike lanes to campus roads and stocking bikes that can be borrowed for free.
The university is pushing its $250,000 "Bike Emory" initiative, launched a year ago, in hopes of convincing students and faculty that the eco-friendly bikes are a better alternative to their four-wheeled, gas-guzzling counterparts.
Emory started a bike-share program a couple of months ago. It has just 20 bikes now, but that will double by this fall, said Jamie Smith, who oversees the initiative. The sign-out lists for the bikes had just 12 names on them after the program started in April, but that number climbed to 45 in June during the typically slow summer, Smith said.
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City Resident and avid cyclist Neil Norton, with one of his little ones in tow
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