SFUSD

Kids at 40 schools this morning participated in San Francisco's biggest Bike to School Day yet. The level of participation, in the event's fourth year, reflects steady growth in levels of biking and walking to schools throughout the year.

Across the city this morning, kids and their parents hopped on bikes to get to school, many of them breaking out of a car commute routine that's no fun for either party.

The City of San Francisco is still barred from installing any new bike infrastructure because of a three-year-old injunction, but that's not stopping the San Francisco Unified School District from installing bike racks at the city's schools. The school district isn't covered by the injunction, and it's using several sources of funding to add desperately needed bike racks to schools like Balboa High, where these new racks were spotted just yesterday by health education teacher Christopher Pepper.

All morning I've been asking myself (and some others) why kids riding bicycles to school is a pressworthy event. Don't kids always ride bikes to school or have we become so car-dependent that even this sancrosanct part of being young and carefree is a thing of the past?  Unfortunately, the latter is the case, as no school in San Francisco sees even 5 percent of walking and bicycling trips to school.

Sustainable school transportation officials and advocates have celebrated the installation of the first new bike racks in the San Francisco Unified School District in many years.