Students donned roller skates, hopped on bikes or set off on their own two feet through Ponderosa Park in Bend early Wednesday morning, as part of Commute Options’ regional push to ensure kids get to school in ways that are healthier and better for the environment.

Kimi and Brian Guerra walk their daughter and niece to school at Bear Creek Elementary every day, and have done so for three years. Because they live close to the school, this is possible, and they also want to instill a sense of community for their kids.

“We try to always take part in it when the school does it, it’s fun for the kids, they get a little incentive, reward when they get to school,” Kimi Guerra said Wednesday after the walk. “It’s something that our family does every day, to just commute to school in a healthy way.”

Safe Routes to School

The walk and roll to school days are part of the Safe Routes to School program, and every few months, students get together in larger groups to walk, bike or roller blade to school. Wednesday was International Walk and Roll to School Day, with over 2,000 registered events across the country. Commute Options, a Bend-based nonprofit with a goal of increasing transportation options, helped coordinate five in-person events in Central Oregon, and other schools were putting together their own events, said Marika Tammaru, Safe Routes to School coordinator.

“We observe it as part of our Safe Routes to School program, and part of our initiative to encourage more students to bike and walk to school,” Tammaru told The Bulletin Tuesday. “We’ve got a lot of really great momentum building, where we’ve done events multiple times a year throughout the last couple years at a couple schools, and May is usually our biggest turnout, especially when we have nice weather in the forecast.”

Tammaru hopes these events encourage kids to be more independent and alleviate some of the traffic concerns plaguing school drop-off and pick-up areas.

“We’re hoping by getting a big group of students together to walk, bike, roll to school, that we can help empower them to make that choice more often than just a couple days out of the year, and we’re hoping that parents can see that ‘oh, look, this park is a great place to drop my student off and then they can walk from there to school safely,’” she said.

Tammaru organizes bike and pedestrian safety events, bike nights, walk to school days and assemblies in schools to encourage getting to school safely.

“We definitely notice that when spring comes around and we have bike safety going during school, we notice more bikes in the bike rack, and we notice students just using April and May as a time to ramp up and get more excited about biking throughout the summer,” she said.

Tammaru is looking forward to hosting events on how to ride a bike for older students who never learned. Commute Options is also looking to replace the older bikes they have with new ones.

“We have a lot of conversations in our bike safety classes about the difference between riding a bike for sport, which a lot of families have the opportunity to do, but not many people choose to ride a bike as a form of transportation, and so exposing the students to that, and helping them learn that they can use a bike as a way to get where they need to go and as a way to be independent is really great,” she said.

In the summer, organizers map safe routes to school for the coming academic year depending on where walk zones are and from where students are starting.

Michelle Rhoads, active transportation coordinator for Bend-La Pine Schools, is interested in making sure more kids walk and bike to school to get exercise, free up traffic congestion and reduce climate impact. Around two-thirds of students arrive at school by car, she said. Many students live in non-transport zones and are not eligible for the bus.

“This is going to take a village of our community partners to improve our Safe Routes to School program,” she said. “Several of our schools are having a walk and roll event today, this is just one of several, but next year we want to have (one at) every school.”