Every school day at 8:00 a.m. senior Raiyaan Shah makes the same calculation–he needs to get to school, and he can do so either by hitching a ride with his dad in the car or making the trip by bicycle. He walks to the window and looks out just in time to see his father pulling out of the driveway. Looks like it’s the bike today, he thinks. He isn’t disappointed, though. Shah looks forward to biking, even preferring it to driving, citing how pleasant it is for him.
Shah isn’t alone at PHS–every day, many students cycle to school. Before school starts, the campus’ bike racks fill up to capacity, leaving some to lock their bicycles against nearby railings. In some ways, the scene is reminiscent of another time.
Since the 1960s, the share of students in America who walk or bike to school has fallen from almost half to roughly one in ten, according to the Safe Routes To School (SRTS) program established by Congress in 2005. Before this decline, roughly half of children aged five to fourteen walked or biked to school, according to SRTS.
Comparatively, Piedmont has retained a high proportion of students arriving without cars, in part due to the district’s relatively small catchment area–the area in which families are assigned to the district. The campus’s central location within Piedmont reduces travel times for many of the city’s residents. Additionally, Piedmont’s urban fabric is uninterrupted by large roads or highways.
Students cited the convenience and benefits of walking as reasons why they don’t drive instead.
“If I had a driver’s license, I’d still walk for the exercise, and I wouldn’t have to worry about parking my car,” junior Nathan Tuan said.
Many students’ walks to school are relatively short.
“For me it’s a ten minute walk, which is pretty close,” junior Kian Ghaderi said.
However, for students who live outside Piedmont or have a long walk to school, the 33 bus provides a different alternative to driving.
“Last year I did a class trip to the middle school, and we had to walk from Beach Elementary all the way to PMS up Oakland. That was really not one of my skills,” said PMS sixth grader Henry Jobst as he waited for the bus at Grand and Oakland Avenues. “I take the bus because I don’t want to walk.”
Jobst does not ride the bus to Piedmont alone- also riding was PHS freshman Nikita Gorelik.
“I don’t really mind it, and if I’m late I can always just get a ride,” Gorelik said.
For Gorelik, who lives outside of Piedmont, the bus is the easiest way to school without being driven. The bus line terminates outside of Mulberry’s at 8:22 every weekday.
“I live really far away, and I don’t like walking up the hill,” she said.
However, walking, cycling, riding the bus, and driving aren’t the only ways to get to school. Senior Vaughn Khouri has a more unique mode of transportation–the Onewheel.
“Obviously driving is safer, but honestly I can beat a car because of the traffic by like a good five minutes, so it helps for not being late,” Khouri said.
Khouri said that the best part of riding a Onewheel was the community.
“It’s a whole community. It’s definitely a community of nerds, but it’s kind of sick. You have all these engineers who wanted a board-sport, and it became a lot of fun to talk to those people. That’s why I stuck with it,” Khouri said.
Khouri leaves his Onewheel unlocked while he’s at school.
“There are three AirTags inside of it, one of them is inside of the controller which needs a security torque spit to open it, so I generally feel like there’s no way that I’ll lose track of it,” Khouri said
For students who take bikes, scooters, or Onewheels to school, parking can prove challenging.
“[The stand] is always filled up, but there’s always the four rungs up at the park that I park at, that’s where I parked this morning,” Shah said.
Difficulties with parking aside, Shah still prefers biking to driving.
“I prefer biking, it’s just more fun,” Shah said.