Has anyone heard anything about the Madison school board taking up this issue further or the administration revising the policy? Or perhaps their intention is for people like John Colemen and others to just forget about it over the summer so they won't have to change anything come fall. - Mike
--------- Forwarded message ---------- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2003 08:53:23 -0500 Subject: BCP page submittal Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> RE: Madison Metropolitan School District Meeting of the Board of Education, 6 June 2003 Agenda Item III - Public Appearances Transcript of Michael T. Neuman's Remarks Bicycle Prohibitions at Elementary Schools (MMSD Policy #4233) Policy #4233: "A pupil under the age of ten shall not ride a bicycle to school. a) The Principal may make exception upon written request of a parent. b) The Principal may forbid bicycles on school grounds." MTN Comments: My name is Michael Neuman. I have been a Madison resident since I graduated from the UW-Madison in 1975 with a master's degree in the sciences. I have been an environmental advocate most of my life and have studied the issue of transportation and the environment intensively over the past 3 years. I have 3 children who completed grades K - 5 at Henry David Thoreau Elementary School. I am speaking in favor of MMSD abolishing its policy requiring an approval from the principal before children of any age can ride their bicycles to school, for the reasons of their own health and that of the community. I believe the community and the environment would be better off if the school district developed a policy that speaks positively about bicycling to school, rather than negatively, as I believe the current policy does. My 3 children were not allowed to ride their bicycles to Thoreau school at all, even after they reached the age of 10, because the principal at the time did not allow any of the children to ride bikes to school. I can't say whether or not my 3 kids would have used their bicycles to go to school or not during those years, but I would have at least preferred that they were given the choice. Along with walking, bicycling is a non-polluting form of transportation. There is no exhaust, and no greenhouse gas is produced. It is much better for the environment for people to use non-motorized forms of transportation rather than transportation that is dependant on fossil fuel burning. And I can tell you that, in studying the issue of environment and climate change over the past several years, we are all in a great deal of trouble now because of all the fossil fuel burning having been done in this country since the invention of the automobile. Dane County alone sends 6 million tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to the atmosphere on a yearly basis now just from motor vehicle travel, and because greenhouse gases remain in the atmosphere so long, there is currently 200 billion additional tons of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere now as before the invention of the automobile; and that is a tremendous amount of weight. It has been documented that, just in the last 5 years, temperatures have risen 2 - 4 degrees F. above long term average temperatures in Wisconsin and the Great Lakes region. Scientists from the UW and other major Midwest universities have just released a report that predicts temperature will climb dangerously in the coming years, by 7 degrees in winter and 13 degrees in summer, before this century is over. University studies also tell us that emissions from fossil fuel burning in automobiles, jet fuel in jet engines, and coal and natural gas in power plants increase the substances in the air that cause ozone levels to rise, which will get worse with warmer temperatures in spring, summer and fall, and cause even more asthma and asthma attacks, heat attacks, cancer and even stroke, especially in the populations living closest to heavily used roads in the city. In closing, children of all ages should be encouraged to ride bicycles and to walk to school, rather than being driven to school everyday. The current school district bicycle policy is a negative policy and send the wrong message to children. Instead of discouraging kids from riding to and from school, the district should encourage them to do so, for their own physical fitness and good health, as well as the health of the community and the environment. Ask the city to put the drivers of automobiles near schools on alert to slow down, not speed, and watch out for kids bicycling on Madison's streets, rather than telling kids there's a rule against riding bicycles to school in Madison. ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
