Walk to School Day

Yesterday, Koloa School participated in Walk to School Day Event which was held for the purpose of encouraging students and adults to walk more and my family joined in their walking.  Surprisingly, there were  many people gathered at the starting point. 

I know they never intended it but the distance from Big Save to Koloa school is exactly the same from Koloa Jodo Mission to Koloa School.   So the flyer sounded like...."From your house to Koloa School is not far!!!  Why don't you walk, Ishikawas?"

I felt a kind of ashamed of driving my daughter to school almost every day!  Only once in a while, we walk or bike to school.

According to the flyer, this promotion is very meaningful for the followings;

1. Increase physical activity in our children

2. Teaching safe pedestrian and bicycling skills to children

3. Reducing traffic congestion and speed near Koloa School

4. Walking is a fun way to spend time with children in your life

These are absolutely good reasons for parents to walk, however, if we really want to encourage people to walk more, we need to think of the reasons why we don't walk to school.    

I think the biggest reason is safety issue.  There are little sidewalk on Kauai and I have to say, it's not safe to walk  on the roadside where cars are occupying.   In addition, there are more and more drivers who speed too much on Kauai.    Why?

I am thinking the cause and effect as follows;

Kauai is now having more people and cars.  The more cars, the worse traffic would be.  We have to spend more time for driving.  This means we have less time to do anything else.    As a result,  we become more irritated.   The more frustrated we are, the more speed  we might drive in order to save time...

The traffic problems in Hawaii are actually very difficult to solve.  Maybe impossible to have a solution.   However, we need to do something.    Without each one's efforts, the problems cannot be solved for ever.

I thought this "Walk to School Day" was a very meaningful and successful event.  It gave me a chance to think about what was the problem and what I could do....Now I have a feeling that I need to walk more in order to reduce both the traffic and my heavy weight.