Staff and students over at Sunnyside Elementary School are struggling with the loss of 60-year-old Becky Lee, a popular custodian who was known as “Ms. Becky” to the kids at school.

Lee was walking in a crosswalk when she was hit by a pickup truck last Wednesday at the intersection of Judson Avenue and Edna Street, just a few blocks away from where she worked at Sunnyside Elementary.

She was rushed to San Francisco General Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

The 42-year-old woman who was driving the truck wasn’t arrested and remained on the scene where she cooperated with the cops. Police are still trying to determine how the collision occurred.

sfweekly, 17.04.13.

A Protest on Two Wheels

A bike ride from Oakland to Sacramento aims to halt cuts to education funding.

..They felt elected officials in Sacramento were not holding up their end of the public school bargain. So they got on their bikes and rode east to demand more money for their school and for all of California’s public schools. “What happens in Oakland is a preview for a whole erosion of schools in general,” Napolitano said.

In the three years since, the state has continued to slash education funding, and the four-parent delegation has morphed into a multi-school force of more than one hundred parents, teachers, students, and community members pedaling to the capital to demand better funding for K-12 schools.

ebx, 02.05.12.

saturday, may 11th, 2013.

thinking about doing this, since i was too lazy to register and raise money for climate ride.. 105 miles from Oakland to Sacramento. doable, yeah?! and gotta root for California public schools!

…But are our cities, the places we live, being built for young people? Do kids really care about the way our city looks? The way it is designed, built and managed?

Two young Saskatoon urban planners are looking to answer those questions. They have created a summer camp designed to engage children as young as 10 in the world of urban design.

…

At the weekend camp, kids between 10 and 13 learn about everything from zoning bylaws and restrictions to how to design roads, build bridges and bike lanes. They take tours through parks and neighbourhoods and learn about different concepts of urban design.

thestarphoenix, 13.06.12.

(Source: lifeonfoot, via captainplanit)

The City just announced that 15-mph school speed limits are now up around 181 schools, making this the first big city in the state to take comprehensive citywide action for safer streets. Read more at WalkSF.org, in the San Francisco Chronicle and on Streetsblog.

This has been a major campaign for Walk SF because this about redefining what — and who — our streets are for. They should be safe and pleasant for everyone.

Let people know about the new speed limits to make them more effective — and check for them at schools near you. If they’re missing, let SFMTA know. Walk SF has also worked with SFPD, which is going out to each school to ticket speeders. If you see speeders near a school, call your local police station and report it.

walkSF, 14.05.12.

“The children of San Francisco are our most precious resource, and we need to make sure that they feel safe traveling to and from school,” said Mayor Edwin M. Lee. “To help ensure this, I have asked city departments to prioritize actions, such as the new 15 miles per hour school speed limit zones that will have a direct and immediate effect on making our streets safer and more livable for all pedestrians.”

way to go, mayor. :]

LUDDEN: Is it a generational thing?

DARLINGTON: I think it is. And, you know, we’re talking about a lot of big broad cultural changes that have taken place. That statistic that you mentioned — in 1969, 48 percent of kids walked to school. Today it’s 13 percent. And part of that is suburban sprawl. Today’s schools are — they build schools bigger and further from the center of town with more kids, so it’s further away. I personally think that’s all the more reason for kids to ride bikes. It’s a good reason for them not to walk. It’s pretty far. But a bicycle is a good solution to that. And then there’s all the other stuff that, you know, adults are prey to these days, mostly, as Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists, puts it, things involving a small screen, namely computers and video games and things like that.

16mins, npr. or read the transcript. 02.05.12.

Why Johnny Can’t Ride

Childhood obesity rates are soaring, youth participation in sports and other active pursuits is plummeting, and a generation is coming of age with little understanding of the joy and freedom of unsupervised play. There’s a simple solution—but all across the nation our schools earn a failing grade when it comes to letting kids ride their bikes.

Adam Marino of Saratoga Springs, NY, sparked a national debate simply by trying to ride to middle school. (by Nathaniel Welch)

more: bicycling