Walk to school day starts today

Carson City schools will celebrate Spring Walk to School Day by walking, riding and rolling to school today.

Each student will receive a Walk to School sticker and a chance at special prizes. Individual schools may have additional recognition or incentives for students. Students who take the bus can participate by walking a mile at lunch time.

Last fall on International Walk to School Day, 32 percent of the students at Al Seeliger Elementary School arrived by human power, and an additional 23 percent were bused. Less than half the students arrived in their parents' cars, according to Dan Allison of the Carson City School District Safe Routes to School Program.

"Walk to School events work to create safer routes for walking and bicycling and emphasize the importance of issues such as increasing physical activity among children, pedestrian safety, traffic congestion, concern for the environment and building connections between families, schools and the broader community," Allison said in a press release.

He said the obesity rate in Nevada has nearly doubled from 13 percent in 1995 to 25 percent in 2007, largely because of decreased levels of physical activity. Fifty percent of the children hit by cars near schools are hit by vehicles driven by parents of other students, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Walk to School Day directly works to improve these statistics, Allison said.

Walk to School Day is being supported by the Carson City School District Safe Routes to School Program, which is a collaborative effort of schools and parent teacher organizations, the school district, the Board of Trustees, Muscle Powered and Sierra Nevada Journeys, and the Nevada Department of Transportation.

The Safe Routes program teaches students safe walking and bicycling skills, reduces hazardous congestion in drop-off and pick-up areas, improves school zones with new signing, speed signs and crosswalks, and adds sidewalks and paths where they are missing.