by Tanya Snyder, Streets Blog
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According to the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, up to 20 or 30 percent of morning traffic can be generated by parents driving their children to school. Today, about three-quarters of school-aged kids in America get to and from school by car [PDF]. In 1969, half of all schoolkids walked or biked to school, but that rate has fallen to 13 percent, according to the SRTS Partnership.
This creates a dangerous mess of cars pulling over and merging back into traffic in front of schools — with small children walking around. The result: child injuries and deaths, especially on high-traffic streets with on-street parking. A 2007 Department of Justice report [PDF] found that, to make matters worse, delayed drivers often speed when congestion eases, in order to “make up time” and out of a perverse sense of road rage.
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https://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/09/05/september-brings-back-to-school-jump-in-traffic-congestion/