Unclog the roads

The Miami-Dade school system, the nation’s fourth largest, has about 345,000 students and 40,000 employees.

Many additional students go to private and religious schools. It is impossible not to notice the happy difference in traffic congestion when school is not in session.

We have few choices about improving roadway capacity. Public transportation does not serve us well. It would help if we could get more cars off the road.

What about walking to school? And riding bikes? In days of yore, school grounds were awash in bicycles during the day. Today, there are none.

Are all of our streets and neighborhoods so unsafe that we must deliver children to school and retrieve them as well?

Let’s put some resources into improving sidewalks, bike paths, crossing lights and school safety patrols (remember them?) and — twice a day — get Mama and her SUV off the roads.

This story was originally published January 19, 2016 at 6:17 PM with the headline "Unclog the roads."