>What do you propose they do?

To participate in politics to end this farce in American urban planning when they grow up. Like the previous 2-3 generations should have done.

2-3 generations ago, parents weren't terrified of letting their children play outside in suburbia. Or if they were, it was because of previous moral panics like satanism and kidnappers, not cars.

Those aren't the kind of roads that suburbs are made of. Tell them to stay away from those roads. Kids in high density urban areas need to worry about those roads, but this discussion is about the viability of suburbia for children.

Okay, let's make this more concrete. Here's the school district map for Cherry Hill, NJ, a suburb of Philadelphia: https://www.chclc.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?module...

And here's a route from a residential street to one of the schools on that map within the same school catchment area: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/39.9349018,-74.9901605/Thoma...

I challenge you to find me a walking route between those two points that does not involve crossing a heavily trafficked road.