|
For more information, contact: Maine Schools Participate in Walk & Bike to School Week Augusta, Maine –– More than 50 elementary and middle schools from Fort Fairfield to York will participate in Maine Walk and Bike to School Week, May 7-11, by encouraging students to get to school using muscle power. Activities will include “walking school buses,” where students walk under adult supervision, “bike trains” giving students an opportunity to practice bicycle safety and walking events at school. Governor John Baldacci has issued a proclamation urging all students and families to participate by bicycling or walking to school, work or for fun and recreation. Some schools will hold activities one day during the week. For example, Hall- Dale Elementary School in Farmingdale will have students track their cumulative mileage as they walk in a field behind the school. Other schools have planned programs that will continue for several weeks. Small Elementary School in South Portland is participating in Maine Walk and Bike to School Week for the first time. The school’s PTA has organized five “walking school buses” led by parents from different neighborhoods. They will carry walking school bus signs and pick up children along their routes. The walking school buses will continue every Wednesday through the end of the school year. “Kids that walk and bike to school are ready to sit down and work when they get there,” said Meghan Gaven, who chairs the Small School PTA’s transportation committee. She noted that children who acquire healthy habits are likely to keep them when they become adults. Maine Walk and Bike to School Week comes at a time of growing concern about childhood obesity. Obesity rates have doubled in the past 20 years. Public health officials cite less physical activity and a lack of safe places to walk and bicycle as major factors in the obesity epidemic. Nationally, nearly 90 percent of students age 5 through 15 who lived within a mile of school walked or biked in 1969, but the figure had fallen to 31 percent by 2004. The Maine Department of Transportation has contracted with the Bicycle Coalition of Maine to assist in the development and implementation of the Safe Routes to School program. Funded with federal, state and local money, the program promotes walking and bicycling for Maine's schoolchildren. For more information about Maine Walk and Bike to School Week or Safe Routes to School, please contact Denise Delorie, Safe Routes to School program assistant, at 692-7384 or email saferoutes@BikeMaine.org. Advocating bicycling safety, education and access in Maine since 1992, the Bicycle Coalition of Maine is working to make Maine accessible and safe for all residents and visitors so they may comfortably and responsibly bicycle. The BCM also promotes bicycling for transportation, health, recreation and fun to enhance our communities, environment and economy. # # #
Better Bicycling in Maine Since 1992 |