What’s wrong with the school car line
Every weekday morning, across the country, parents fall into the same routine. A line of SUVs and minivans snakes around the school. Engines idle as mothers and fathers inch forward, phones in one hand, coffee in the other. Kids sit in the back seat scrolling on their own phones, waiting for their turn to be unloaded by a staff member in a reflective vest. One by one, the doors open, backpacks are lifted, and the vehicle pulls away. The factory-like process is orderly, efficient, and utterly dehumanizing.
The school drop-off ritual is a powerful curriculum, teaching kids that they are packages to be delivered and picked up, and that they require constant adult supervision.
In 1969, about 48% of children walked or biked to school. By 2009, that number had dropped to just 13%, according to Walk, Bike & Roll to School statistics. Today, the figure hovers around 11%, largely unchanged for a decade, per Rutgers University. Even among children who live within a mile of school, walking or biking has fallen from nearly 90% in 1969 to just 35% in 2009.
{“blockType”:”creator-network-promo”,”data”:{“mediaUrl”:””,”headline”:”Urbanism Speakeasy”,”description”:”Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.”,”substackDomain”:”https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/”,”colorTheme”:”green”,”redirectUrl”:””}}
What’s going on?
The shift didn’t happen because children stopped being born with legs or because they stopped wanting independence.
- Schools were moved to the edges of town, often on cheap land surrounded by parking lots and wide arterial roads.
- Roads were engineered to maximize long-distance automobile throughput and minimize short-distance walking and cycling.
- Parents were persuaded that it was unsafe to let kids walk or bike, even though most child fatalities happen while they are passengers in vehicles.
Logistics management
Line up, inch forward, unload. It looks like logistics management because it is logistics management. We have turned the beginning of a school day into a miniature supply-chain operation. This logistical worldview carries profound consequences.
- Physical health: Walking and biking to school once provided children with reliable daily exercise. Today, U.S. teenagers walk about 5 miles less per week than teens did in the 1990s, The Wall Street Journal reports, and rates of childhood obesity have tripled since the 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Mental health: Independent mobility builds confidence. A child who can walk to school learns to navigate space, manage risk, and take pride in independence. A child chauffeured twice a day learns dependence, passivity, and helplessness.
- Safety paradox: Parents believe driving is a safe way to get around, but an average of three children are killed and another 445 injured every day in traffic crashes, National Highway Transportation Administration’s traffic safety data shows.
Packages don’t talk back, don’t take detours, don’t linger to climb a tree, don’t stop to pet a dog, and don’t notice the smell of honeysuckle on the way to class. Car dependency trains kids to be passive and dependent cogs in a machine. The irony is that the very efficiency parents crave—faster lines and predictable behavior—increases congestion, frustration, and risk to everyone on the roads.
The alternatives
We don’t need a time machine in order to reintroduce childhood independence to our culture:
- Walking school buses are groups of kids who walk together, accompanied by one or two adults. This approach offers safety in numbers while teaching kids independence.
- Bike buses or bike trains do the same with cycling, helping to normalize two-wheeled commutes for kids.
- School siting reform could reanchor school construction back in neighborhoods, instead of exiling buildings to distant parcels accessible only by car.
The morning line is more than a nuisance; it’s a ritual of indoctrination. Every inch forward in that queue trains children to see themselves as cargo, delivered by others, rather than as capable individuals navigating their world.
But if we flip the script, if we give kids back some autonomy, the benefits ripple outward. Parents reclaim sanity. Communities reclaim healthier, calmer streets. And children reclaim one important thing the car line strips away: freedom.
{“blockType”:”creator-network-promo”,”data”:{“mediaUrl”:””,”headline”:”Urbanism Speakeasy”,”description”:”Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.”,”substackDomain”:”https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/”,”colorTheme”:”green”,”redirectUrl”:””}}
