Walk N Roll gamifies school commute for these kids

LAFAYETTE, Calif. — Kids on bikes, scooters, skateboards and foot arrived at Lafayette Elementary School one breezy Wednesday in October, excited to kick off a new program meant to encourage alternative modes of transportation and greater attendance. The students joined a growing number of kids participating in Contra Costa Transportation Authority’s Walk N Roll program. What began as a parent initiative at a single school in 2022 has expanded to two dozen campuses across the county. Cara De Jong, who started the program at Pleasant Hill Elementary, had just returned to the states after a decade in Europe wanted to encourage families to take up active modes of transportation like she’d become used to. Two years after independently launching the initiative, De Jong was hired by the Transportation Authority to run the program as an official program. It became De Jong’s job to help campuses establish their own Walk N Roll events, by training staff and parent volunteers to run the once-weekly event. “When I came back, I thought I do want to make a change in my community, and of course I dreamed of this day but I didn’t know how we were going to get here,” De Jong said. “It’s super exciting to stand here today and see how it’s now county wide. And I do hope it will go outside of Contra Costa County.” Seven campuses joined the program in 2024, and another 10 in 2025. As of this year, Lafayette Elementary School became the 23rd site to participate, and additional campuses will be added soon, De Jong said. Students can participate in the program by carpooling or using a form of active transportation, like walking, cycling or riding a scooter. As they arrive on campus, a crew of volunteers scans tags given out to each student. As participation days add up, the student earns charms they can add to their tag. Data collected from the tags has helped the Transportation Authority calculate the program’s impact on things like road congestion to greenhouse gas emissions. That information will enable the agency to be more competitive for state and federal grants that will help spread the program across additional Contra Costa County campuses. “What we love about Walk N Roll is that it’s accomplishing so much with one really impressive, really exciting program that is also really inspiring,” Transportation Authority spokesperson Lindy Johnson said. “It provides really concrete data about its impact, but it’s also just really good to see kids in front of their school excited to participate in something that is really good for them, really good for their families, and really good for their community.” For communities, programs like Walk N Roll can have huge impacts on road safety and congestion, Lafayette Councilmember Stella Witherspoon said. Concerns for road conditions are acute in the small, hilly city, which has limited routes in and through town, she said. City officials made the issue a priority in 2021. Tragedy brought the matter into greater focus — the death of a crossing guard, Ashely Dias, who was struck by a woman in an SUV outside Stanley Middle School late that year. Recognizing the need for more road safety, Witherspoon said the city is investing millions of dollars toward installing protected bike and pedestrian paths and infrastructure. That work, slated to begin next summer, is being done with support from a $3 million congressional grant from U.S. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier. “Lafayette has got a real need to manage our school area congestion,” Witherspoon, who serves on the Southwest Area Transportation Committee, said. “The most important thing is to improve safety for our children, but also to manage people as they’re moving about their business, as they’re trying to get to work. We just want the streets to be less congested with school traffic so it’s safer.” At the campus level, De Jong said schools see decreases in tardies by up to 50% and subtle increases in attendance on Walk N Roll days. Those improvements mean more money for districts, which receive state funding based on their average daily attendance, De Jong noted. About half of Lafayette Elementary’s 500 students participated in the school’s inaugural Walk N Roll Day, a high for a school of their size, De Jong said. Those numbers, she anticipates, will likely grow as the campus and others in the county continue to embrace a biking culture. “It’s really fun to see the kids have enthusiasm about walking and biking,” Principal Melissa Barclay said. “It’s exciting to see that movement and that parents are supporting the program as well. We generally have an enthusiastic community when we come together, so I think that we’ll see a lot of success with the program.”