Two Tosa Schools Celebrate National Bike to School Day

Wednesday is National Bike to School Day, and of the 45 registered events in Wisconsin, two are in the "Sensational Sixth" district of Wauwatosa:

McKinley Elementary School is celebrating its second annual Bike to School Day and Eisenhower Elementary is holding its first.

McKinley Bike to School Day, led off by its , will feature before- and after-school bike helmet-fittings, at 7:45 a.m. and 2:15 p.m.

The afternoon session will be headlined with a bike inspection presentation by Jessica Binder of the Wisconsin Bike Federation at 2 p.m.

The Wauwatosa Police Department will be at McKinley in the morning to advise, assist and support, and the Wauwatosa Fire Department will do the same in the afternoon. Wauwatosa Mayor Kathy Ehley plans to join in at the 2 p.m. recognition.

Eisenhower's Bike and Walk to School Day is led by Molly Del Vecchio and is called Walk the Path Wednesday.

Del Vecchio came up with the creative idea of a "Park and Walk," wherein parents and children will drive to the AMF Bowlero parking lot at 117th and Locust and then walk to the rest of the way to school along the service path adjacent to the Tosa West High athletic fields.

The time for the "Park and Walk" will be from 7:45 to 8:15 a.m. District Ald. Jeff Roznowski will serve as a crossing guard at 117th and Locust streets for the event.

School zone safety has been a top issue the past two years, and one of the great puzzles parents and planners have pondered is how to get students who live east of Mayfair Road/Hwy. 100 safely to Eisenhower, Whitman Middle School, and West High without adding to the congestion of West Center Street at school/commuter rush hour.

While biking or walking all the way to school is considered ideal, the barriers are great.

Del Vecchio's park-and-walk concept has so far beaten the professionals to the punch in providing a solution that, while still entailing some parental driving, relieves localized congestion and at the same time gives kids some exercise.

Families car-pooling to the Bowlero parking lot will further relieve car-crowding – a different, two-part take on Lerand's "walking school bus" concept at McKinley, in which families agree to aggregate their kids into gaggles to walk together safely to school.