I certainly agree that those who have long distances to walk gain value by taking the bus.  And you mention chemgal, that some have a distance to walk to meet the bus in the first place.

Students in my area catch the bus at the end of our block.  Most of them walk much less than a block to catch the bus, and usually end up waiting about 5 minutes for the bus to get here.  The bus ride from here to the school is less than 5 minutes, to walk the route would take less than 15 minutes.  I often wondered why some of the students didn't walk in the nicer weather ( I can understand the value in catching the bus at -35 C) as in spring and fall.

Usually the issue isn't walking to a bus verses just walking.  It is walking  verses mom driving you.

in our area I think the TDSB will bus you if an elementary student is 2 km away from school.  That seems pretty reasonable to me.  If there are lots of kids in a neighbourhood then there is a bus stop on a corner that all meet at.  If one kid, they pick up at the driveway.

Country kids are picked up generally at the end of the laneway, at each farm

But what you see in Toronto at least is kids being driven a few blocks by parents.  Sometimes those parents are on their way to work and so i can understand why they do.  they can head off to work confident that the child is at school.  But the child loses out on exercise, day dreaming time, social walks with friends.......

Other times the moms just seem to drive the kids for no reason. 

I used to drive my kids when young, we lived about 5 miles from the school but there were moms driving who lived almost around the corner. 

Eventually my kids took TTC to school, walked to the subway........  A benefit of being in Toronto to have TTC on a regular basis and my kids used to ride for $0.50 a ticket.  now my daughter gets a monthly pass as a university student for $100/month which isn't bad but it does mean she takes a bus often when she could just walk.

my son lives in Edinburgh with pretty much no bus service near by.  He walks everywhere and rides his bike about 30 minutes to class

Our kids can't walk to school.  I timed it out last summer and it took me and the dog 20-25 minutes.  It would take the girls about 40 minutes.  THey also can't be bused as bussing is only provided for people 2.4km from the school and we are just over 2km (by road, if they were walking there is a field they could cut through).  And so for the next few years they will be driven, as much as they ask to walk sometimes.

BUt in the last place we lived we found it very odd who was bussed--even the distance of less than a block in one case.

The last time this was brought up, I was trounced for suggesting that it is better for kids to walk (or bike or run or whatever).    I walked until grade seven, when I transferred to middle school over 15 miles away.  Then I walked to the bus stop because kids were picked up at a central location.   When my kids were young we made a point of living within walking distance of the schools. 

I was surprised to learn that some people intentionally choose their homes far enough from the school that their kids will be bussed.    But the policy in this province seems to be to discourage walking.  In the country the little one-room schools where a dozen or more children from 5 to 12 had classes together to regional schools.  And in the city schools aren't built in the newer subdivisions but to large schools in central areas.   And it is almost door-to-door.  Kids are picked up at the end of the block and busses to the school door.   From my observations the few kids that do walk now are mainly from families that are well enough off to be able to afford to have one parent stay-at-home, or that the parents have fexible schedules so that one parent is available.  And those people seem to throw themselves into parenting - making it their profession.   Kids from families that can't afford that luxury, end up being driven or bussed.

My kids used to walk 5 minutes to a bus stop for a 20 minute ride to school.

Then the provincial government, bless its rotten little heart, decided we needed a new monorail system called the Canada Line for the Olympics.  My kids' bus was cancelled.  Now it's a 15 minute walk to the train station, a train ride, a transfer at a casino of all places, a second train ride, and then another 10 minute walk to school.  

Sometimes I make them do it because I'm just mean that way, but most of the time - especially when it's pouring rain which IS most of the time - I drop them off on my way to work.   grrrrrrrrr.

When my son walked to elementary school it was a 5 minute walk for me, 8-10 minutes for him.  Adds up to 40 minutes of exercise a day.  His Jr High is another 5 minutes away so every school day he gets the suggested 60 minutes a day of exercise.  Not only that but he walks with friends and it's not unusual for them to take a couple of slides down the hill in the winter or stop at the playground to horse around or walk around the lake on the way home getting even more exercise. 

Hi Chemgal,

The only time I ever took public transit to school was when I briefly attended Seneca College for Fire Protection Technology.  I lived at Finch and Kennedy in Scarborough about 5km away.

All through high-school I walked or jogged the 2km from house to school through all kinds of weather.  At University and Seminary I lived in residence and probably had to walk much, much shorter distances to class.

My daughters attend the same high-school and walk just under 2 km to class though they call if the weather is bad and ask for rides.  We don't feel to badly if we are unavailable to pick them up.  Skin is waterproof I tell them.

If they were having to walk 2km to get the bus to school  I think that would be excessive.  Especially since the city bus drives right past the house.

Grace and peace to you.

John

As a child I walked 20 minutes to Elementary School, a couple of blocks to Secondary. 

My children walked a couple of blocks for Elementary and 10 minutes for Secondary,

There are just so many variables that I couldn't possibly say 'all kids should walk to school' or 'all kids should get a ride to school'.  Some children in this community have really long walks to school - but hardly any of them do it any more.  Mostly the parents give rides.  I don't see many going to school by bike anymore but once it was quite commonplace.

 Sometimes I think my children were the last group to have some independence.  So many parents now are scared that there kid willl be molested or stolen that they don't let them go anywhere alone. 

I lived rural growing up and so most of the grades I walked 1/2 mile to catch a bus.

Then we moved in gr. 7 and caught the bus at the end of the drive.

My kids walked to elementary and junior high. And biked or took city bused to high school. I'd pay them theri bus pass $-$40-if they biked or walked. My youngest walks to the LRT and takes it to school-or did last year.

We only have around 5 billion or so heartbeats in our lifetimes...

So exercise is 'good' in that it can help us keep our heart rates down during normal activity.

Use your heartbeats wisely :3

I lived 10 miles from my public school and 8 miles from the high school; for some bizarre reason known only to school board officials I would not only go past another public school but because it was beside the high school would have to stop there while the high school students disembarked. 

My entire public and secondary education involved bussing and being on a bus for 30 to 45 minutes each way every day.  To this day I am nauseated by the smell of diesel fuel.  I was the first on and the last off.  It was, for my childhood, torture.

The only thing that kept me going was I could have lived in Britt and I would have been on a bus for an 1 hour and a half.

LB

-----------------------------------

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

     Albert Einstein

We have a dilemma here in NB. 

Small community (call it Deadend).  A decade or more ago they began bussing the high school students to a regional school about 20 miles away; but they renovated the school and kept it open for elementary school.  So the high school kids were bussed - the elementary kids continued to walk to school. 

Deadend is a dying community.  The school is old and needs extensive repairs to bring it up to code.  Eighteen children now attend that school in grades K to 5.   Its simply not economically viable.

But apparently there is a law somewhere that limits the number of miles (or klms) that elementary children can be bussed.  The nearest school is outside that limit. 

Solution that the Department of Education sees:   Make an exception to the rule and bus the kids out.

Solution that the Deadend wants:   keep the school open.   There is another small community (Halfway Point)  between Deadend and the village with the regional school which the children now attend.  If the children from Halfway Point were bussed in the opposite direction to the school in Deadend there would be 30 or so students - enough they think to justify keeping the school open.  

I don't think anybody has asked the people of Halfway Point what they want. 

I sympathize with the people of Deadend.  They want a school in their community where their children can walk to and from, stay and have a ball game in the playground after school, and be almost within shouting distance of home.  They don't want to wake their kids in the dark on a cold winter morning and send them off to spend the next 3/4 hour on a bus travelling through the woods on a winding rural road, not to see them again until almost supper time.  It's a long day for a five year old away from home.    But keeping the school open is just not feasible.

It was about 16km from my house to my school growing up. I started attending that school when I was in Grade 2. The first few years, we carpooled with other families from our neighbourhood, but when I was in Grade 5 they started offering a bus service. I took that every day until I finished Grade 12. The first few years it was about 2km to the nearest stop - my Dad used to give me a ride in the mornings (on his way to work), but I would walk home by myself in the afternoons. They then expanded the bus service when I was in high school, and my new stop was only a couple of blocks from my home. That gave me more independence in the mornings, but less exercise overall.

When I was 9, I went to the middle school.  It was 1 mile from my front door to the school's back/side door if you used the walkway

We were not able to stay for lunch, unless you lived over a mile from the school, so...I walked 4 miles/day. 

In the winter, the wind blew straight up (or down) that street.  RevJohn would know Ballantyne Ave......it was one long cold walk....and of course, at lunch not much time before you turned around & walked back, especially if you were fighting snow drifts or unshovelled walks.

My Dad got his rolling measure that he used for pipelines, and proved that if he went out the side door and then in the front door of the school, that it was more than a mile.  So, for a few months, I had lunch at school, until the cold snap was over, and I could walk again.

I don't think anyone ever thought about us being driven, let alone taking a bus!

For our own kids, my oldest walked from home or rode his bike...though only the senior public (grade 7/8) was far enough to matter.  It was 1.8km.

His younger brother had a tough time in the mornings, and by the time he was at that school, my husband was retiring.  He drove him many mornings.......to no end of razzing by his older brother.

I had to look at mapquest :3

My elementary school was some 11 km from where we lived and it accepted kids from more than one city, so, parents would trade off carpooling.  Since everyone was involved with the school, that worked out quite well.

I remember learning how to walk home myself; I think I ended up taking my sister with me one time.  The first time I went the complete wrong way and ended up getting picked up by one of my teachers.

My 2nd high school was even farther (my 1st was within walking distance, but for various reasons, I didn't stay), more than 3 cities away, so it was either drive or go by bus (I remember the old bus route would take up to 2 hours to get home -- enough time to finish my homework or play a quick D&D game with my friends).   When it moved closer, it was still over a river and a bridge; so again, car or bus.

When we moved to London I started kindergarten.  Our house wasn't completed yet so we rented a townhouse that was just down the road and my mom could see us walk there.  My big brother was in grade 6 so I guess he walked me to school after lunch.  In those days the older 5 year olds went in the afternoon, the younger in the morning depending on which month you were born in.

Then the house was completed about three months into school and I remember the first day walking home alone to the new house.  My instructions were to count 4 houses past the white house and that would be home.  I had certainly walked to school with my brother after lunch so how difficult could it be.  I came to a white house, counted 4.  Not our house.  I went back to school and did it again.  And again.  Still not our house.

Sadly there were two white houses and my mom hadn't noticed.  She came and found me after 45 minutes of walking to and fro from school and we learned the route together.

All the 5 year olds walked to school alone.  There were tons of kids walking the streets.  It was what was done in the 60's.  Now I would be surprised if I saw a 5 year old out alone.  You never do anymore.  Although when my kids were 6 I started letting them walk to the corner store on Bloor street, 15 minutes from home for a treat.  My 8 year old walked his 5 year old sister the first time and they were very proud.

After all , they had walked the street endlessly all their lives with me and the dog, they knew the rules, the route, the traffic. 

The story starts this way ...

"Kids can be very persuasive. That must have been the case with 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, who talked his parents into letting him walk home alone on Monday from his day camp in Brooklyn. His parents made a deal with him: they reviewed the route together — seven blocks — and agreed that his mother would meet him halfway. The boy never made it.

His body was found Wednesday, carved into bits — his feet allegedly in the freezer of a stranger named Levi Aron, whom police say Leiby had the great misfortune of asking for directions when he got lost on the way to meet his mom. Aron was arrested and charged with murder Wednesday."

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/07/14/second-guessing-should-leiby-kletzkys-parents-have-let-the-murdered-boy-walk-alone/#ixzz1S5QQoVKN

This (and other stories like this) is why kids don't walk to school any more ...

Qwerty, although yes, once in a billion walks to school, a child is taken by a stranger.  I have a similair story of a young lad from London Ontario, who was in my school, and was the reason for Block Parents starting.

Yet, parents have gone over the extreme....and in the process failed to teach safety.  Kids still die from strangers...it hasn't stopped it.

Now, we also have kids who don't make relationships on those walks.  The friendships built ont he playground and on the way to school.  Hard to do that waving from the carseat.

From the link Qwerty provided....

[...]

The murder rate is lower in New York City than it's been in 50 years, Skenazy points out; Leiby's death is but a horrific anomaly. For many New Yorkers in particular, it immediately brought to mind another local disappearance that occurred more than 30 years ago, when 6-year-old Etan Patz vanished after begging to be allowed to walk to his school bus stop alone, two blocks away from his SoHo home.

These tragedies grab headlines, but they're hardly typical. "This is beyond the exception," says Skenazy, who draws a comparison between the number of kids kidnapped and killed by strangers annually — statistics put that number at about 50 — and the number of children under 14 killed in car accidents each year, which is more than 1,300.

***********************************************

Moral of the Story:  we can live in fear, ignore that a child is more likely to die while being driven in a car, or arm our children with safe techniques for their journey through life.

LB

-------------------------

Who can hope to be safe? who sufficiently cautious?
Guard himself as he may, every moment's an ambush.
     Horace (65 - 8 BCE)

I remember that boy in London too Pinga. 

I think parents over compensate for fear of strangers though.  Parents act like there is a crazed rapist behind every tree. 

It seems to me that parents have become, not just cautious and aware, but paranoid.  It also seems to me that it would be safer on the streets for everyone if there were lots of other people out on the streets.  Horrendous stories of murders rarely seem to come from areas where many people regularly walked and recognised the people they passed.  As a child I walked a lot in the necessary process of getting from point A to point B.  If I was scared by a stranger I already 'knew' the 'safe' people to ask for help, it was the people I saw daily at that time on that street.

I went to kindergarten and Grade 1 in the early 1980s in a school that was easily walkable from my house and I did it every day - usually without my parents (no siblings either since I was an only child). Inevitably I would meet up with friends on the path. My favourite memories of those trips involve picking and eating salmonberries and huckleberries when they were in season. Yum, yum!

In our school board, kids are bussed if they are 1.6km away from the school or more.  We are 1.5km away from the school.  Last year our daughter started JK and she wasn't even 4 years old yet, but rules are rules...so no bus.  The school is touted as an "eco school" and they are so proud that they don't have kids taking busses, but the number of cars of parents dropping off and picking up kids is staggering.  Ok...maybe some of those 9 year olds could be walking, but I really doubt that they expect 3-5 year olds to walk to school, especially since it would mean crossing one of the busiest streets in town.  I'm all for kids walking when they are old enough to do it safely because it IS healthier for the kids and the environment, but I don't buy the whole eco thing.  They knew the parents would drive the kids, especially the younger kids.  They did it to save money, period.

Wait - you have three year olds at regular schools??? Here three year olds go to daycare or pre-school (not with older kids) or still stay home with their caregivers.

To start Junior Kindergarten, a child has to be 4 before the December 31st.  Since school starts in September, nearly 25% of kids will start school before their fourth birthdays.  Rachel's birthday is November 2nd, making her one of the youngest in her grade.  Junior and senior kindergarten are both optional, but I don't think very many parents opt out of it, especially since kindergarten is free while daycare and nursery school programs can be very expensive.

Umm, are all the parents heading off to work after dropping the child(ren)?

I completely agree that little ones and children who have not yet developed critical thinking skills - ie a stranger approaches, what do you do?, should not be walking alone to school.

I also recognize in communities with no public transportation that the parents who are heading to work would need to use their cars, but what I do not understand is parents who do not walk (or if the child has learned, ride a bike) beside their children when it is feasible.

Obesity as a health issue is becoming number 1 in North America.  Citizens will pay big bucks for health clubs, personal trainers, diet supervision, etc. etc. and yet will not walk a few blocks?

LB

---------------------------------

People say that losing weight is no walk in the park.  When I hear that I think, yeah, that's the problem. 

     Chris Adams

I don't know how many provinces offer junior kindergarten or when it was introduced.  I know that when my children were young it wasn't part of the school system in Ontario or Quebec.  It still isn't in NB. 

To be honest, I don't approve of it.  I think that children 3.75 years to 4.75 years are young for formal schooling.  Sure it is a boon for working parents.  As noted above - it is free (that is the parents don't pay for it - believe me the taxpayers do).   I would like to see those tax dollars going to subsidized day care and play groups for underprivileged children - and I would like to see churches and community centers open play groups, and public libraries offer story time, and other opportunities for socializing our kids. 

One year of kindergarten should be enough.  By then the children should be old enough to walk 1.5 klms if accompanied by a parent or other responsible adult or older child.   Crossing guards should be provided wherever children have to cross busy streets  (they are in this city).  

When I was a patroller we only did the crosswalks adjacent to the school  We used to actually go onto the street though, now they just stand at the edge of the sidewalk.

I remember when I was in K & Grade 1 almost everyone was bussed.  They had patrollers for the busses!  In kindergarten, the patrollers lined up the kids and made sure everyone was on the right bus.  I think there was 3 or 4 of us that walked.  We had our own patroller (in addition to the ones who were actually at the crosswalk for the older kids).  She walked across the street with us, and if it was a nice day and she had nothing to do right away she would walk a bit further with us.

It takes my husband about 20 minutes to walk to her school on his own.  With Rachel, that's closer to 40 minutes.  If he drives her, it takes about 15 minutes out of his day, but when he walks her he uses 2 hours out of his day just walking and not getting anything else done.  That's a lot of time that could be spent getting groceries, doing laundry, cleaning the house, working on the basement renovation, etc.

A lot of the other parents have younger kids to take care of at home, too.  People have stuff to do besides just walking.  I'm not saying it wouldn't be healthier because it obviously is, but there are lots of reasons why a parent wouldn't walk beside his/her child even though it's feasible and the number one reason is time. 

Ontario has had junior kindergarten since at least the mid 1980s.  I know this because I used to go in to the jk class once a week to help out when I was in grade 7 or 8. 

To be honest, I would rather have Rachel in a nursery school or preschool program because there are fewer kids and she could go for half days, but there were no fees to send her to JK and the preschool program she went to before that was $30 for every half day.  Keep in mind that it isn't as if she's sitting at a desk for 5 hours per day; it's still kindergarten.  She's playing and painting and running around in the gym and singing songs, etc.  She loves it.  Next year it will be all day, every day, and there will be two adults in the room and 26 kids.  It's not perfect, but it's not awful either.  I really don't see much of a difference between JK and daycare in terms of what they are doing.

I can certainly understand that when it comes to greater distances and little ones but I still wonder about those where those conditions do not apply.  The time spent walking together I would think would prove to be invaluable.

I still remember fondly the 1/2 hour walk to my son's day care (beside the GO station) before heading into work.  It was our time together and one that allowed us to see our neighbourhood.  Even later, when circumstances forced a change in day care and having to use a car, the 1 1/2 hours daily alone together was probably the best as neither of us were distracted by other things - particularly when rush hour ground us to a halt!

But then again, maybe I am projecting too much.

" I really don't see much of a difference between JK and daycare in terms of what they are doing."

Except that Junior Kindergarten is paid for by taxpayers and daycare is paid for by the parents.   And I think the fact that it is part of the school system parents might feel obliged to send their child 'so she wouldn't get left behind'.  And if they decide not to chances are they might be the only family in the area whose child doesn't attend school - leaving no one to play with, and no one for the parents to arrange play dates or social groups with. 

It just seems to me that we push our kids to excell too soon.  And we put them in jk and sk where they learn routines and what is expected of them, rather than what they might be interested in and become part of the cookie-cutter culture where everybody is expected to think and act according to school rules.  Maybe the kid still wets his pants, or likes to have a nap at the wrong time of day, or gets lonesome and has separation anxiety for his home and mother (or father).   Isn't 3 3/4 years old a bit young to find out that you don't measure up to the groups standards.  Isn't this a time for forming family bonds,  exploring who you are and finding out how you relate to the world, learning at your own pace the things that matter to you and your family.  

If they are too little to walk any distance (1.5 klm seems excessive even for a 5 or 6 years old) they may be too little for school - even if it is guided play.   And I agree, some children love the routines, the socializing, and the activities of being in a group.  I just think they could do the same in a church basement if 1/2 dozen parents got together for a couple of hours in the morning a couple of days a week and let their children play.  

[/quote]

MistsofSpring....some schools in Ontario had JK in the 80's, but not all by far.

It was not offered at the school my oldest son went to, and he was born in '89.  It was offered for my youngest son who was born in '93; however, we chose not to use it.  Given they were born in the fall, this would mean that it wasn't there in '92, but was by  '96.  We are in a mid-size city.

Why didn't we use it when it was available?  My youngest son was in an excellent regional daycare centre.  I would have had to find him transportation every day at noon to transition him to the school, then, figure out what to do with him in the afternoon.  He would have been too young to walk with anyone.  By Kindergarten, the next year, he was able to transition to a home of friends with their children.  The amount of money that I saved was not worth the disruption to him.

I always walked to school, rain or shine.  Sure I'd bitch about it, but I'm happy I did.  On occasion I took the bus, when I could sneak on (I was too old :P).  But all-in-all, I support walking to school (and everywhere for that matter) when it is practical.

As-salaamu alaikum

-Omni

My kids walk to their school: prob. 1k.  My oldest is looking forward to biking to his HS: maybe...2k.

There was a young girl (12, at the time) who got a drive and picked up every day: she lived about 50 m closer to the school than my boys (up the street). She could have used the walk, frankly.

In the fall/winter/spring I can't take the bus to work unless I leave at least 1/2 hr. earlier than I would if I were riding my bike: the 2 high schools and 1 public school jam up the street so much it takes over an hour, sometimes, to travel my summer/fair weather 20 minute bike ride. They are all: on a TTC route, and a bike route. It's ridiculous.

There is a great blog called Free Range Kids* (google it/don't know the url off hand) that talks to this Utter Lack of independence in kids. There are also studies suggesting 'our' (parental) coddling is doing No Favours to our kids (or us!): 20  year olds are Just getting to the point of being able to operate independently from Mother and Father....I've seen it; it's real.

And btw: Stranger abduction is so rare, it's a lame excuse. Educate your children.

*recently, FRK had a posting: a 12year old was picked up and driven home by the police for "walking alone downtown". This kid *lives* downtown and is 12 (old enough to babysit).  When speaking with my kids, I told them if that ever happened to them, they better get the cops to phone me before they get into ANY cop car.  And to refuse to go with any police officer unless they have my express approval. I'd lose my mind if the police unilaterally decided to drive my child home.

Martha, I'm with you 100%.  

I simply can't believe how dependant my 14 year old granddaughter is.  And it's not doing her any favours.  

It all depends on where your school is. My son's new school for Gr. 7 & 8 is 20-25 min. by bike and we may let him bike when weather allows. However, it's definitely too far to walk, esp. for getting there on time in the morning. N.B. that he goes outside our catchment area because he's in a gifted program. If it was our local school, he could bike it in as little as 10 and walk it in 15-20. Up to grade 6, they provide bussing but for 7-8 they just give you bus tickets for transit. However, we're looking at 1-2 transfers to get there by bus due to how LTC is laid out. So current plan will likely be carpooling to school and transit home.

For high school, it's probably going to be bike or transit again. We're on the far edge of the high school's catchment area and it would be a 30 min. + walk to get there. For bad weather days, I can drop him off since I drive past the high school (almost, it's not right on the main street I use) going to work.

When I went to school, by contrast, my parents were basically in the middle of all the schools so I had a 15 or so minute walk to elementary school, 5 min. (could run it in 2-3) walk to middle school, and 10-15 minute walk to high school. So, I walked (except for band practice days in high school, when Dad usually dropped me off en route to work).

Mendalla

for some reason people seem afraid to let their kids walk.

An hour walk is a good way to wake up, get some exercise, let your mind think deep thoughts.

i walked an hour to high school.

i took the bus to public school because it was down town.  There was a transfer needed and it only ran every half hour so boy, don't be late.

Parents don't let their kids walk, but then they drive them to soccer practice to get exercise

makes no sense

Martha, that cop needs some education!  A girl was abducted and dropped off in another city by a guy pretending to be a cop.  A child shouldn't be getting into a car with someone they don't know, cop or not.

Chemgal, Exactly! 

Complicating matters is that in our 'hood, there are a number of movie car wranglers, for lack of a better term: collectors of cars that are used in movies.

So: we see "Chicago", "NYC", "Pittsburgh"... any number of different municipalities "police cars" every day!  Actually, when TO updated their cars, we laughed when we saw it: No city would do that on purpose! That's a completely unbelievable paint job! (yeah: it's real. They look like surf shirts from the 80s)

And that's why I kinda lost it when I heard this story; the 'fake' police car is an issue.

I live in in a downtown residential neighbourhood. Parents walk their kids to school all the time., even though the schools are within a few blocks of everyone.  There are many dangers to think about, not only possible child abductors, older kids in gangs, but also dangerous drivers. I walked to school, walked to my friends houses in the neighbourhood alone all the time as a kid as young as  5. We lived in a quiet suburb. I think it depends on where you live. There is higher crime in big cities. It's not highly likely to happen, but it does happen. More so, speeding, car accidents and hit and runs happen.

I took the public bus to school by myself in grade 6. My first trip with my just my friend and I on a bus to a local shopping centre, I was probably 10...over 25 yrs. ago. My mom made sure I had a quarter (or dime?) in my pocket and called her from a pay phone when we got there. That would never happen in Vancouver, and most likely not in my home town anymore either. I don't think it's even legal. There are more dangers, sadly. I would rather drive my kid to school,if I had a kid and a car, and encourage them to get exercise some other way, than expose them to the dangers.

Kimmio - you know your neighbourhood and its dangers.  But it seems to me that if I lived in that neighbourhood, had school aged children and could possibly afford to do so, I would move to a safer area.  

I worry about kids not learning to take responsibility for themselves and experiencing the confidence that comes from having some independence.  When I see people hovering over their children (not the five and six year olds but those of 8, 10, 12, I wonder when they will ever learn to cross a street, find their way around, take a city bus, etc.  

When Seelerboy was around 13 we let him take a bus from NB to Montreal with his 15 year old cousin.  One transfer point.  We took them to the bus station, notified the driver that they were travelling alone, and made sure my sister knew when they would be arriving in Montreal.  No problems.

Seelergirl was in her teens (probably 15 or 16) when she and her friend began traveling by train or bus to visit her friend's aunt in Ottawa. 

But in preparation for this they had been walking to school alone (or with a group of kids) from Grade 1, and taking the city bus to get around from age 10 or 12. 

Yes, there are dangers.  But I don't think there are any more than letting your kids take the school bus - walking to the bus stop, waiting by the side of the road, etc.  and I would be really concerned about bullying on the bus.   One driver watching the road - 50 kids on the bus - unsupervised and bored.

The thing is...despite it's drawbacks, it's a beautiful part of the world.  We have the best of all worlds...urban living, with beaches and nature nearby, mountain views. You can get all your errands done without a car. A lot of immigrant families congregate downtown. For example, there are a lot of people from Eastern Europe here, especially from former Yugoslavia and a few I know from Bulgaria. There is a growing Korean population here. They get to know someone who knows someone who  knows of an apartment with reasonable rent,  who might bend the rules and take two kids in a one bedroom if they can't afford a bigger place...perhaps a building manager who speaks their first language, maybe with ties to a possible job...they often move here because there's already a known and established community and it's an easier transition to a new country--and perhaps they come from cities and are used to living in cities. Granted, there is nepotism going on, but I can totally understand that. Also, many people work downtown and would rather live downtown. It's too easy to just say...well maybe they should move somewhere safer. Downtown kids have cultural opportunities and learning experiences that suburban kids don't have.

Right Kimmio.  I agree. And it seems that the positives outweigh the negatives.