Is it uncommon for kids in the US to walk to school if you live close (like 1 mile)?

42 comments

1. It is very uncommon in my area. We have one elementary school in my rural district and it’s centrally located, there are only a few homes within 1 mile of it.

2. It’s common in my area

3. It’s common. Maybe not so much for kindergartners (4-5 years old) without an older sibling.
   Buses aren’t for picking up kids a few blocks away, it’s usually for kids from a farther distance.

4. In my area a lot of kids walk to school, and at least when I was growing up, we were allowed to start walking alone in fourth grade (9 years old). I lived too far away, so my mom would drop me off at a friend’s house to walk from there.

   Also, kids here always walk to preschool (with parents) because we have one very small preschool every mile or so rather than a bigger centrally located one.

5. I grew up in a city and everybody walked to school since first grade.

   However this is not common.in the suburbs as the distance can be multiple miles.

6. It depends on the school.

   I live near an elementary school (kids would be age 5-10), and the kids who live within a mile of school cannot take the bus, but they are also forbidden from walking. Why?

   The geniuses in charge of building this school decided that they didn’t need sidewalks leading to the school. You have to cross a couple parking lots and a driveway to get to the school. On a busy school morning with a bunch of little kids, I could see how that could be dangerous. There also probably aren’t enough kids within close proximity to justify hiring a crossing guard.

   The high school is literally next door, and those kids (age 15-18) are allowed to walk.

7. I lived basically next door to all three levels of schooling, so I unless the weather was awful I walked virtually every day from kindergarten to graduation.

8. I used to when I was a kid in elementary school. We walked with a big bunch of kids from the neighborhood. Then we moved farther away from my middle school and high school and had to take the bus or catch a ride from friends or my sisters.

9. We don’t have sidewalks in the suburbs usually, so a mile would be a very long way to walk in the roughly 20cm of road surface between the painted line and the guardrail that keeps you from tumbling down a hill.

   But kids who lived within, say, 2 streets of the school, yes, they walked.

   If you’re curious, here are photos of some roads near where I grew up: https://imgur.com/a/O1WUiv4

10. Not too common in my city, because many elementary schools are on or nearby a large roadway that is dangerous to cross. Junior high (grades 6 or 7 to 8 or 9) and high schools (grade 9 or 10 to 12) are larger and farther away.

    Plus, for whatever reason, we’ve decided that our kids can’t be left to travel alone until they’re ridiculously old, like at least 10; the culture (and [sometimes even the law!](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents-investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25700823/)) in many areas of the United States says kids can’t walk to school by themselves. So, until almost junior high, parents feel compelled to walk with them. And if the parents aren’t stay-at-home parents, then they have to walk home, then get in their cars to go to work. Dropping the kid off on the way to work, even if it would be possible to walk, is the easier option for working families.

    Then there are the kids who have to travel quite a distance to school and take (in most cases) yellow school buses.

11. When the school is close enough, sure.

    We live about 5 miles from our kid’s schools, so obviously we wouldn’t expect them to walk that far. But when we lived in our last home we lived within the same square mile city block from their school, so they would often walk.

12. I lived like .75 miles from my elementary school but I didn’t walk to it. It was on a 50mph street with no sidewalks.

13. From my experience, the limit is 1/2 mile. Any more than that and a bus will pick you up. I have kids in school now and it’s the same for them.

    Growing up, I went to 6 schools, walked to 3 of them. I think 1/2 mile was the most. Maybe slightly more.

14. I live very close to an elementary school and high school (same high school I attended). Kids are walking to school all the time. It took me about ~7 minutes to walk to get to my high school.

15. Where I lived most walked to school. Elementary, middle and the high school were all within a mile.

    My mom dropped us off since we were almost always about to be late lol. I slept in as long as possible. Plus she dropped us off since that’s when she went to work anyway so she wasn’t going out of her way to do so.

    I always walked home though. Occasionally I would walk to school with friends in the morning if I got up early enough and the weather was nice.

    When I started driving and got a car I rarely walked to school. It was cooler to drive and I could go see friends after school that lived across town or go to the mall or something without having to walk back home to get my car. Plus I was always late to my first period band class in the morning lol.

16. I went to a (relatively) rural elementary school and walking would have been dangerous to all but those that lived on the same road as the school, and even then, it would be kinda sketch. We were usually bussed or driven by parents. My middle school was slightly less (relatively) rural, and kids would often walk or bike if they were in the immediate neighborhood. I did nearly every day. My high school was much more urban/suburban, and walking was extremely common, but I was driven since I lived on the other side of the city.

17. Depends on the layout of the area. If your school is across a highway or has not safe walkways to get you there, which isn’t too uncommon, then no, kids won’t walk. If it’s a rural area or a quiet suburb of a rural area, walking isn’t too uncommon. If it’s a dense city, most kids will walk. There’s a lot of the first scenario however.

18. We moved around within a close-in, densely populated suburb, and none of my kids ever lived far enough away from their school to qualify for bus service. I don’t remember what the maximum walking distance was for elementary school, but it was one mile for Middle and High School.

19. Looking at the bike rack at the elementary school near my house and it’s always quite full. Even along the fence there are lots of bikes chained up.

20. Depends on how large of a city/school district, really. I believe it is pretty common. In school districts around me they only offer school busses to kids who live outside whatever radius they set. It’s a much smaller radius for elementary aged kids, gets a bit larger in middle school, and is larger in high school. Kids who live inside that radius either have to walk/ride their bikes or coordinate pickup/dropoff with their parents or figure out a carpool situation.

21. I lived across the street from a city elementary school for many years until recently and most of the kids walked. This was in a neighborhood with sidewalks, crosswalks, low speed limits, and no stroads for the kids to cross.

22. My home is exactly one mile from the elementary school and my son started biking in 4th grade. There are sidewalks, crosswalks, and the school is technically located in our neighborhood (no crossing of highways or anything). I probably wouldn’t have let him otherwise.

23. Depends where you live. In some parts of the country walking a mile may very well be a death sentence.

24. My middle school was the only one within walking distance. Took the bus for the others until I could drive at 15.

    Edit: in my area, if it’s within walking distance lots of people still walk but definitely not as many as when I was a kid

25. In my school district, they expected kids living within a mile radius to walk to school. Everyone further out was provided with school bus service.

    Given that I live in a very damp corner of the world, many parents who lived closer than a mile opted to drive their kids in instead of making them walk.

26. Growing up I walked or rode my bike. Now in the same neighborhood, everyone is bussed. There was/is even a dedicated walking path and everything… dumb.

27. My city has 5 high schools that kids attend based on neighborhood. A lot of kids that live close enough (2 miles or less) walk to school but also everyone qualifies for free public transit bus passes as well since we don’t have school buses.

    That is not at all the typical American experience though.

    When I was a kid we had school buses that picked up all over town to bring kids to school unless you live close enough to walk. But also school start times are usually early enough for parents to drop their kids off on the way to work so a lot of kids are driven to and from school by parents or grandparents.

    I was always driven to school because my family was paranoid that I would be kidnapped waiting for the bus or walking.

28. It was the suburbs and the sidewalks where not in the right places and there wasn’t a good place to leave a bike at school. Quarter mile or a block to school walked and everyone took the bus. It’s more of a supervision thing as well.

29. It depends on a lot of things: distance from school, rural,suburbs, or city, funding (some schools don’t have funding for buses so more kids have to walk), and age.

    I walked to school in elementary school I lived very close.

    However, it is very uncommon for kindergarten aged children to walk to school alone. That was a huge culture shock to me when I visited Germany. I was shocked that so many 4,5,6 year olds were walking to school alone. In the US, that could get a parent arrested bc the child could be kidnapped.

30. It isn’t common today. It was very common when I grew up. Today, my kid’s school doesn’t let them walk. I hate the long drop-off line of parents.

31. I grew up rural (and decades ago). I walked to elementary school. 5th grade and up I had to ride a bus into town 10 miles away.

    My girls grew up in a major city suburb and their district had a two mile radius rule – no bussing for kids within that radius (except for special needs). Some kids walk, bike, etc but a lot of parents drive their kids everyday. There is a marked difference in traffic around schools out here between when school is in and out of session.

32. A lot will still take the school bus over that distance. Or ride bicycles. Unless they are in a city proper, in which case walking is very common. 

33. In my town the bus picks up kids who live farther than 2 miles away from their school. Those closer than 2 miles either walk, bike, or ride with someone in a car.

34. My high-school was a 30 minute drive down the highway. 20 miles each way is a bit much for walking. 

35. I walked up hill, both ways.

36. FWIW the first school I went to was in San Francisco, and I took the bus. I’d actually walk to the neighborhood school that I did not attend, where I would hop on the bus to another school several miles away.

    When my family moved to the suburbs, I was still a kid, and I was surprised to learn that in my new town, people just went to the school that was closest. My elementary, junior high, and high schools were all within walking distance and I walked pretty much every day. My high school was the farthest away, about a mile (20 minute walk) and sometimes in the winter if it was raining my dad would give me a ride.

    It wasn’t too unusual for me to walk back and forth a couple times a day. I was in the marching band, so I might walk to school, walk home after, then walk back for a football game, then walk home after. I wish I’d had an odometer back then, I was probably walking ten miles a day between going to and from school, wandering around campus with my friends, marching band, and playing tennis.

    Edit: OP, I am seeing some people say that in suburbs it’s often not safe to walk. This is going to vary wildly. I grew up in a suburb where it’s totally safe to walk, there are sidewalks, etc. This is not the town I grew up in, but it’s pretty nearby. I went to an elementary school in a neighborhood similar to this: https://www.google.com/maps/@38.1050692,-122.5858232,3a,75y,336.56h,94.1t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUqccYg-Mrp4wJBR01NaIkQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu

37. Not so common around here but there is a few housss very close to the schools so I do see those kids walk or bike to school. Otherwise they all take the bus

38. It used to be the norm but sometime in the 80s I think, there was this huge scare over dangerous adults who might kidnap your children. “Free range” kids gradually became a thing of the past, sadly.

    Not only affected walking to school, kids stopped doing Halloween without adult supervision, venturing off to parks and playgrounds by themselves, etc. It’s awful and I think it has damaged them and society

39. People in my area do not let young children walk that distance alone.

    I live 1.5 miles from my local elementary school, and all the neighbor kids take the bus or are driven by parents.

40. The only school I walked to was elementary. Junior high (1.7 miles away) I took the bus or my dad drove me. High school (3.4 miles away) was riding the bus until I got my license. For reference I grew up in a suburb of a mid-sized city.

41. It depends on the route in my community. If the walking route traffic reaches a certain level of risk to the walker the school district will bus the student to school regardless of distance.

42. It’s quite common for students who live close enough, it’s not for those who don’t.