Bike and Walk to School Day at Merrick-Moore Elementary

Fourth grade students walking around Merrick-Moore Elementary on Bike and Walk AT School Day

Tuesday morning I biked from Sherwood Park in east Durham to Merrick-Moore Elementary School at 2325 Cheek Road in east Durham where students were getting outside to walk around the school campus as part of national Walk and Bike to School Day.*  It was good to see the kids outside, and they clearly enjoyed the break from the classroom, but this was certainly not walking and biking TO school.  The reason this was a walk AT school event was clear when Dr. Vannessa Alford, principal at the school, asked the Kindergarten students why none of them walk to school.  One of them called out “No sidewalks!”

Where the sidewalk ends at Merrick-Moore Elementary

Merrick-Moore Elementary is located on Cheek Road, a two-lane road with no shoulder and incomplete sidewalks.  The school is a key institution in the Merrick-Moore neighborhood, a historically Black neighborhood that has a history of advocating for more walkable streets. “My community has lobbied for many years for safer streets. Sidewalks are needed more than ever,” Bonita Green, neighbor and President of Merrick-Moore Community Development Corporation told me in an email.

This isn’t just an issue at Merrick-Moore Elementary.  Bike Durham’s Safe Routes to School Program Manager Jen McDuffie identified fifteen Durham Public Schools’ elementary schools that don't have safe streets for walking or biking around them.  That’s more than half of the 29 DPS elementary schools.  We know that parents aren’t going to allow their kids to walk or bike to school unless they feel that it’s safe.  Investing in these connections to schools, and addressing other safety concerns that parents and children feel, have to be priorities before every child can experience the joy and independence of walking or biking to school. 

Events like these are one way to raise awareness of the benefits that biking and walking to school can bring to the kids and also the parents.  Two of our daughters attended E.K. Powe Elementary, right around the corner from our house, connected with sidewalks.  When they were in fourth and fifth grades, they would walk independently to and from school.  It was a great feeling of independence for them, and it freed my wife and me from having to race home from work to pick them up each day. 

These events are also an opportunity to identify the obstacles, like poor or missing infrastructure.  This event at Merrick-Moore was organized by Stephen Mullaney, an accelerated teacher at the school, and supported by Bike Durham’s Safe Routes to School Program Manager Jen McDuffie.  It was attended by School Board member Natalie Beyer, City Council members Jillian Johnson and Pierce Freelon, and Durham Transportation department staff Bill Judge and Dale McKeel.  Along with Dr. Alford, we had good conversations about the need to connect Merrick-Moore and the surrounding neighborhoods with sidewalks, and other strategies to advance the outdoor education at the school.

As I left the school, I was thankful for a lot of things:  that Bike Durham has this new partnership with the City and DPS to provide Safe Routes to School programming; that there are teachers like Stephen Mullaney and principals like Dr. Alford who are leaders in getting kids outdoors and active; that we have elected leadership that supports investing in sidewalks and bicycle facilities; and that all the pick up trucks were giving me wide berth as they passed me along Cheek Road.  

 *May 5th is actually the national Walk and Bike to School Day.  However, there wasn’t any biking or walking to public schools in Durham today because Wednesdays are Wellness Days for Durham Public Schools, meaning that students don’t have class in-person or remote.