This morning, I met a group of people attending the California Bike Summit conference who chose to go on a short bike tour of the area served by NNTMA (North Natomas Transportation Management Association) to see ongoing projects and various accomplishments. I didn’t attend the conference but was glad to be invited to go on part of this tour, especially since I am now a resident. We were welcomed by Howard Chan, Sacramento City Manager, and an avid bike rider. At left is Abbey Stumpf, NNTMA Marketing Communications Manager. At right is Becky Heieck, NNTMA Executive Director. At the first stop, we met a city engineer who works closely with NNTMA to make improvements.Next stop, Westlake Charter School where residents strongly objected to having the associated traffic congestion in their neighborhood. A wide-ranging and complicated plan was created to help with the anticipated problems. Solutions included a walking school bus to and from school every day and a web site so parents know where to park and how to move smoothly through the neighborhood. I left the tour at this point to hurry back to Natomas Park Elementary because the whole group would shortly be in our Project Ride Smart classroom to observe.

at Natomas Park Elementary. There are four 5th-grade classes. Pollyanna and I teach two classes per day between 11 am – 2 pm – great schedule – and we’ll be here all of October.There are 3 classroom sessions where students learn the rules of the road, right-of-way rules, all hand signals, and lots more. They watch short video segments then recap what they’ve learned with prompts from the instructors.Outside, we teach about brain function and the importance of wearing a helmet. One watermelon wearing a helmet is dropped with not a scratch (usually), the other watermelon doesn’t wear a helmet and cracks open when dropped – with much ooh-ing and ahh-ing. Pollyanna, is about to say, “No! Don’t pry open the watermelon.”