Saturday, October 5, 2013
They'd rather RIDE to school
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| Photo: Washington Post |
What has two wheels, runs on human energy and is red, pink, blue or any color in the rainbow? A bicycle.
You may have noticed that in recent years, the number of people who bike in and around the city has increased. More people bike to work, to the grocery store, to pick up their laundry or to go to the movies. There are more bike lanes, bike signs, bike shops and there is even a popular bike idea, Capital Bikeshare, that allows people to rent red bikes to get from place to place.
And the trend is not limited to adults. Kids are getting in gear, too.
“In the winter we walk, and the rest of the seasons we ride our bikes,” Olivia Steckler, 8, said one morning outside Capitol Hill Montessori at Logan, a public school in Northeast Washington where she’s a third-grader. She was wearing a bright yellow vest (so that people can see her when she’s biking), her bike lock key on a string around her neck, and a pink and purple helmet. She stood next to her purple and teal flowered bike, which featured a bell on the handlebar.
“It makes me feel happy,” she said about biking. It takes her brother Ben, 5, and her about 15 minutes to ride from home to school with their babysitter.
“I don’t try to get distracted, but I like to think about how [riding a bike] makes me feel — sort of like I’m flying because my feet are off the ground,” she said.
I'm sure there will be many kids biking to school on International Walk to School Day on October 9.
You may have noticed that in recent years, the number of people who bike in and around the city has increased. More people bike to work, to the grocery store, to pick up their laundry or to go to the movies. There are more bike lanes, bike signs, bike shops and there is even a popular bike idea, Capital Bikeshare, that allows people to rent red bikes to get from place to place.
And the trend is not limited to adults. Kids are getting in gear, too.
“In the winter we walk, and the rest of the seasons we ride our bikes,” Olivia Steckler, 8, said one morning outside Capitol Hill Montessori at Logan, a public school in Northeast Washington where she’s a third-grader. She was wearing a bright yellow vest (so that people can see her when she’s biking), her bike lock key on a string around her neck, and a pink and purple helmet. She stood next to her purple and teal flowered bike, which featured a bell on the handlebar.
“It makes me feel happy,” she said about biking. It takes her brother Ben, 5, and her about 15 minutes to ride from home to school with their babysitter.
“I don’t try to get distracted, but I like to think about how [riding a bike] makes me feel — sort of like I’m flying because my feet are off the ground,” she said.
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