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Comment by Lance_ET_Compte | Hacker News Reader

Why are you DRIVING your children to school?

If cities were for people instead of cars, you could walk to the neighborhood childcare/school.

I am so happy that I was able to walk with my son to/from his elementary school (and kindergarten) every day! It was consistently the highlight of my day!

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I don't live in the city. Aside from not being able to walk to school, mine would have to wake up roughly 45 minutes earlier (60 minutes if we want to be safe) to catch the bus. We are about 8 minutes from the school via car. Between the lack of housing density and ugly school zoning, taking the bus cuts significantly into their sleep.

I had the same setup growing up. Lived about 3 miles from school but was one of the first stops on a 45 minute bus route through largely rural areas. I got a lot of reading done.

Your kid won't be harmed by sitting on a bus every day.

As a kid who had go get up at 5am to catch a bus to school, maybe they might. The issue is not riding the bus, but impeding on sleep. As a teen, I would have preferred to wake up st 6:30 to be to school at 7AM rather than wake up at 5AM to be there at the same time because I'm the first stop. My mom wasn't kind. I did survive, but I also had less sleep which isn't great for a growing mind. I'd drive my kid in the same situation. Hell, I drive my kid now because I don't want a kid who can't write letters yet walking around any real distance without me. Especially in a semi-rural area where we've encountered wildlife and feral pets that weren't dangerous to me, but were dangerous to her.

Many schools are starting later for this reason. Just because the bus may take long doesn’t mean there aren’t other issues that should be solved to make buses a more viable option.

If you live somewhere hostile to walking, like Los Angeles, that's not an option. You're describing living somewhere that's already solved the car-oriented urban-hellscape problem a priori.

> If cities were for people instead of cars, you could walk to the neighborhood childcare/school.

I think that depends on where you live. In my neighborhood, we do walk to school. But, that's certainly not possible in every neighborhood. I have friends that live near stroads of fast-moving & distracted vehicles. They don't walk to school, understandably so.

It might be amusing every once in a while but walking anything over a mile in below freezing weather gets old fast even if bundled up.

When did we become a bunch of wuss. 1 mile is 20 min and even below freezing temp is really enjoyable, good for your body and mental health.

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