{"id":123845704,"date":"2008-12-04T09:35:04","date_gmt":"2008-12-04T09:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=123845704"},"modified":"2008-12-04T09:35:04","modified_gmt":"2008-12-04T09:35:04","slug":"can-kids-just-be-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=123845704","title":{"rendered":"Can kids just be kids?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the last 30 years, our children have lost a lot of the freedom and independence they once had to explore our neighborhoods. As we have designed our communities around automobiles, activities like walking or bicycling to school have declined dramatically.<br \/>\nIn one generation:<br \/>\n\u2022 The number of kids walking or bicycling to school has dropped from 71% to 18%.1<br \/>\n\u2022 The number of total walking and bicycling trips made by children has fallen by 65%.2,3<br \/>\nToday, more than two-thirds of all trips by 5-15 year olds are made as car passengers.3<br \/>\nReduced childhood activity has contributed to health and transportation problems:<br \/>\n\u2022 There are more than three times as many overweight kids today as there were 25 years ago.4<br \/>\n\u2022 More than 1 in 3 young people in grades 9\u201312 do not regularly engage in vigorous physical activity.4<br \/>\n\u2022 As much as 20% of morning rush hour traffic can be parents driving kids to school.5<br \/>\n\u2022 School bus transportation is frequently the second largest budget item for school districts after salaries.6<br \/>\nImagine discovering a way to:<br \/>\n\u2022 Reduce traffic accidents involving child pedestrians by 80%.<br \/>\n\u2022 Take one out of every five cars off the road during the morning rush hour.<br \/>\n\u2022 Reduce school transportation costs.<br \/>\n\u2022 Increase childhood physical activity to help reduce incidences of diabetes and obesity.<br \/>\n\u2022 Give children the same freedom and independence enjoyed by Baby Boomers when they were kids.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.activelivingresources.org\/assets\/SRTS_pledge.pdf\">https:\/\/www.activelivingresources.org\/assets\/SRTS_pledge.pdf<\/a>oldId.20081204093504238<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the last 30 years, our children have lost a lot of the freedom and independence they once had to explore our neighborhoods. As we have designed our communities around automobiles, activities like walking or bicycling to school have declined dramatically. In one generation: \u2022 The number of kids walking or bicycling to school has &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=123845704\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Can kids just be kids?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123845704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123845704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123845704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123845704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123845704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123845704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123845704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}