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Hillview Middle School starts its first day on Wednesday, Aug. 20, and its incoming sixth graders took the weekend to practice their new bike routes to school. On Saturday morning over 30 students and parents gathered in their neighborhoods, hopped on their bikes and rode in groups to test their commute.
Some parents say this is necessary considering recent cyclist tragedies involving a youth athletic coach in Atherton and a student at Stanford.
Safe Routes to School Task Force members from Encinal, Oak Knoll and Laurel elementary schools led each neighborhood’s bike ride toward Hillview Middle School, taking a route that went down Santa Cruz Avenue, a heavily trafficked road.
Hillview Principal Danielle O’Brien encouraged students to follow all the rules of the road, wear helmets and lock bikes. Nell Curran, wellness coordinator at Las Lomitas Elementary School District and Safe Routes parent champion at Laurel, emphasized the importance of signaling to cars, looking over shoulders before crossing into car lanes and keeping other students accountable on the road.
“We’re all a group (trying) to help each other stay safe because cars aren’t always paying attention, so it’s up to us to be the ones that are keeping ourselves and our friends safe,” said Curran during a speech to parents and students.
According to O’Brien, Hillview has hundreds of students biking to school each day. By the time school starts, the bike racks are full, she said.
“At Oak Knoll, the bike racks are like the town center,” said Matthew Rascoff, Safe Routes parent champion at Oak Knoll. He described the unique community that is present within the students and families who bike rather than drive. At the bike racks, students see the same people every day and this allows for cross-grade friendships between kids and parents, he added.
Safety concerns
Hillview Middle School is located on Santa Cruz Avenue, a busy road with many speeding cars. The evident dangers of the area were clear on the morning of the practice bike ride when Rascoff’s group witnessed a car drive through a flashing crosswalk as a student was about to ride across. The crosswalk is located next to the school.
He emphasized the need for better bike infrastructures within Menlo Park that can allow children to develop more freedom with biking and provide parents with peace of mind that their kids are safe on the road.
Juan Pinzon, Encinal Elementary’s Safe Routes parent champion, said the Menlo Park Police Department could do more to ensure drivers are slowing down in school zones and staying clear of bike lanes. Encinal’s campus is located along Middlefield Road, another busy roadway in Menlo Park and the site of the accident involving Dylan Taylor, a local athletics coach and educator who died after a collision with a GreenWaste truck.
While Pinzon discusses lack of enforcement, O’Brien believes it is also about lack of awareness among all Menlo Park residents including drivers and cyclists.
“It’s not just the police enforcing, it’s also the community members who are driving and riding their bikes to make sure that everyone is aware that kids are also biking (and commuting),” O’Brien said.
When students enter sixth grade, they transition from neighborhood elementary schools to a single middle school campus. This means that some students are biking farther distances than others, O’Brien added.
Pinzon, who lives in the Willows neighborhood, said the bike ride to Hillview takes about 25 minutes and he considers it can be a tiring journey. There are also students coming from across Highway 101 from the Belle Haven neighborhood, he said.
While there are concerns around bike safety for students, the Safe Routes to School team is continuously working on educating students and families about how to stay safe on the road.
Local businesses have also partnered with the program to become Safe Routes to School community supporters, offering students a safe place to stop if they experience a flat tire, injury or feel unsafe while biking to and from school. Businesses displaying the Safe Routes sticker are available for students to enter to make phone calls or wait for help. These stores include Cafe Zoe, Cheeky Monkey Toys, Habibi’s Salon, Kepler’s Books, Mardini’s Cafe and Pedego Menlo Park.
For safety tips and resources visit tinyurl.com/saferoutestoschoolmenlopark.
