By Elizabeth Wulfhorst
Fair Haven students – and some parents – two-wheeled it to school Oct. 20 for a bike safety event.
FAIR HAVEN – Is there anything more nostalgic than the idea of children, backpacks secured on backs or in baskets, riding their bikes to school down a bucolic small-town street?
Members of the Fair Haven Green Team want to make sure that image isn’t a memory but a reality for as many community students as possible. So they planned an event Oct. 20 to encourage bike safety, just a few weeks after National Walk and Bike to School Day Oct. 6 and in partnership with the New Jersey Department of Transportation’s Safe Routes program. “Depending on the weather and time of year, we sometimes have more than 60 percent of the students riding to and from school,” said Marilyn Schwartz, principal of Viola L. Sickles School which serves kindergarten through third-graders in the borough. “We even have staff members that ride or walk.” According to Robbyn O’Neill, a member of the Green Team and volunteer for the bike day, the event also helps satisfy Fair Haven’s requirements for the Sustainable New Jersey program, the Green Team’s umbrella organization. The borough currently has bronze-level certification with 170 points and is shooting for gold status. “We get more points if we have innovative gatherings,” O’Neill said.
As part of the Sustainable NJ program, Fair Haven has implemented actions like a community garden, rain gardens and a Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan to encouraging walking and bicycling around the borough. Since 2017 the borough has put biker and pedestrian safety on the front burner. Third Street, a thoroughfare many students use to get to school, is closed to vehicular traffic during school arrival and dismissal times, with police and crossing guards monitoring the students. The police department also has bike safety officers who conduct programs twice a year in the borough’s schools, going over proper bicycle attire, bicycle laws and riding techniques. O’Neill said the response from the students, parents and community to the bike event was overwhelming. Local businesses, like Shrewsbury Bicycles and Juice Haven, got involved by donating gift cards, free smoothie certificates and bike accessories like safe lights, bells and even cell phone holders. “This was such a good feeling on Wednesday, when you saw the synchronization of police involved and Department of Transportation involved and support of council members,” O’Neill said.
Members of the Fair Haven Green Team posed with Viola L. Sickles School principal Marilyn Schwartz (fourth from the left) during the bike safety event.
She also pointed out the multitude of benefits that come from students biking or walking to school, including the environmental and physical impacts, which Schwartz confirmed. “Having the opportunity to ride safely to school provides our students with the physical activity they need to start and finish their day,” she said. “Our students learn about following rules and showing respect for fellow riders, walkers and crossing guards. In addition to being independent, our young students are doing something important for our earth, and they are aware of this,” Schwartz noted. Since in-person learning resumed this year, Schwartz said there has been an increase in the number of younger students riding to school, which she credits as possibly the only good thing to come out of the pandemic “During the lockdown, it appears that many of our students spent time outside and learned to ride their bikes at an earlier age. With more parents working from home, they are taking advantage of this time and riding alongside their children,” she said. In order to accommodate the influx of riders, Schwartz said the school has even purchased additional bike racks “to have appropriate parking for our students.”
Knollwood School, for fourth- through eighth- grade students, also participated in the Bike Day. Co-chairs of the event, Stephanie Adams and Jenni Kimmel, worked closely with both schools’ principals to make sure it ran smoothly and the students learned about bike safety while still having fun. O’Neill, who was reluctant to get involved in local politics when she moved to Fair Haven five years ago, said she is happy to be part of the Green Team. “There’s so much goodness out there. There’s so much help out there. And people are really using government to make better communities,” she said. Schwartz also expressed her gratitude to the community for sponsoring and participating in the event. “As students pulled into McCarter Park, I felt just as excited as the students. Seeing all of the bikes made me proud to be part of Fair Haven.”
This article originally appeared in the Oct. 28 – Nov. 3, 2021 print edition of The Two River Times.
