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Local woman fights for pedestrian safety

By Carrie Seidman
Friday, October 3, 2003

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When Tina Valentine moved to Albuquerque from Tucson two years ago, she was happy to find a home within a one-mile walking radius of her son's school, Zia Elementary.

"I've always wanted to have more involvement in my neighborhood," said Valentine, mother of Simon Young, a 7-year-old second-grader. "And if you're walking, you're most 'in' your neighborhood."

Valentine formed an informal walk-to-school group with a half-dozen other neighborhood children and their parents. But when she noticed the conglomeration of cars in the school's parking lot, she decided to take action on a larger scale.

Valentine helped organize Zia's first Walk to School Day. Today the school joined thousands of others around the world holding events in conjunction with International Walk to School Week.

The motivation is to encourage regular walking and biking for health, to provide education about pedestrian safety and to initiate changes to make streets more friendly for walkers.

New Mexico leads the nation in pedestrian deaths per capita, and statistics show children as one of the highest-risk groups. Pedestrian injury is the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death nationally among children ages 5 to 14, according to the National Safe Kids Campaign.

In Albuquerque, La Mesa Elementary was the first school to participate when the Partnership for Walkable America established National Walk to School Day six years ago. Several other Albuquerque schools, as well as some in Los Alamos, Alamogordo, Las Cruces, and at Sandia and Jemez pueblos, were among those that joined in this year.

"There's even one being conducted in German for the German kids at Holloman Air Force Base," said Jonathon LaValley of the University of New Mexico's department of emergency medicine, who helped plan and organize the event in New Mexico.

A group of Zia students and parents gathered at 8:15 a.m. at a park near the school to form a "walking school bus" a group of children guided by a parent on a safe pedestrian route.

Children participating were rewarded with a reflective bracelet to be worn on a wrist or ankle, and everyone was offered a pancake breakfast at the school cafeteria.

Among the walkers were Myra Segal and her two young daughters, who have been part of a small neighborhood group that has walked together with some regularity since this school year began.

"My motivation is to reduce pollution and to have the kids know that they can do it," Segal said.

Though many parents believe their children will be safer if they are driven to school, the additional traffic often creates a more hazardous situation for children.

"The congestion in the school parking lot is what sparked the interest on my part," Valentine said.

Walking to school has declined by up to 40 percent during the past decade, and children's fitness has suffered. According to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in seven children are now considered obese.

But even for people who are motivated to make changes such as Valentine, who has posted "Kids at Play" signs in her neighborhood so drivers will slow down it's not always easy.

When asked whether her son was enthusiastic about walking to school, Valentine momentarily hesitated.

"Most the time," she said. "It depends on how much he's into the cartoon on TV."