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To Make Streets Safer, Valley Students Walk To School

Cultiva La Salud
Lane Elementary School students on International Walk and Bike to School Day 2016.

Students in Fresno and across the valley celebrated International Walk and Bike to School Day today.

The event aims to tout the benefits of walking and make the streets safer for kids. Esther Postiglione is a program manager with Cultiva La Salud, the advocacy group who organized events in Fresno and Orange Cove.

"Sidewalks aren’t well maintained, there’s limited crosswalks, and a lot of what we hear from residents is there’s a lot of loose dogs," Postiglione says. "So getting their kids to school is a real challenge in terms of walking safely."

At Lane Elementary School in southeast Fresno, students carried paper stop signs and sang songs on their way to class.

Amelia Aguilar, walking with one of her two grandchildren who attend the school, says they have to cross a busy street to get there.

"Sometimes the drivers are in a hurry and they don’t see the kids," says Aguilar. "We live right in front of the apartments and there’s no crosswalk there, and kids are just running."

Last year’s event at Lane Elementary resulted in a group of parents regularly volunteering as crossing guards. This year, organizers plan to submit feedback from students and parents to the city’s Active Transportation Plan.

Kerry Klein is an award-winning reporter whose coverage of public health, air pollution, drinking water access and wildfires in the San Joaquin Valley has been featured on NPR, KQED, Science Friday and Kaiser Health News. Her work has earned numerous regional Edward R. Murrow and Golden Mike Awards and has been recognized by the Association of Health Care Journalists and Society of Environmental Journalists. Her podcast Escape From Mammoth Pool was named a podcast “listeners couldn’t get enough of in 2021” by the radio aggregator NPR One.
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