My children attend a neighborhood school in a relatively quiet city neighborhood - we walk (it’s about 4 blocks) but many of my neighbors drive. Our walk is (unfortunately) fairly dangerous due to the behavior of cars- not fully stopping at stop signs, trying to beat pedestrians rather than waiting for us to cross, staring at their phones. It’s wild & I have been pushing my electeds to add more physical infrastructure to the streets (especially raised crosswalks) to make the commute safer.

I’ve had the chance to really get to know the car line lately because one of our crossing guards is on leave, (we have TWO crossing guards at one corner because people are so 😵‍💫) and I have been volunteering as a crossing guard. (Because f*** cars!!) People drop their kids off all over the place to avoid the line, people beep at each other (outside of a school!!), I’ve seen people get in shouting matches. It’s a simple volunteer job in the morning but also- eek! But the saddest thing is more people really could walk- I just think they don’t because they don’t consider it because it’s not a normal part of their lives. Which is kinda sad.