A Canadian city is pushing for the bike bus to help kids get to school
The City of Charlottetown's sustainable transportation officer says it's the best way to get kids safely to school
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Cycling PEI
A popular method in other cities in Canada, and other parts of the world–the bike bus–is gaining favour in Charlottetown, PEI.
If the weather is nice, it’s always more fun for a kid to ride their bike to school. It’s also a healthy way to get some exercise. But with more and more traffic and aggressive drivers, it can be a scary prospect for parents to consider.
In Barcelona, for example, or, as they call it there, the Bicibús, the “bus” consists of a rolling caravan of kids riding to school with some parents acting as chaperones and ride leaders.
The bike bus system has been implemented in San Francisco. In the same fashion, parents will escort a group of children to school. By creating a large, visible group, they take over roadways for the kids, creating a rolling enclosure that is safe and effective.
Several Canadian cities have adopted the system, including Toronto and Vancouver, to name a few.
Parents will use social media or email to coordinate pickups, ensuring children are at the proper meeting points at the right time to join the bus.
The system, which has been implemented in the U.S., Australia, Spain, and Israel, is something that Anna Keenan, the City of Charlottetown’s sustainable transportation officer, believes would work well in her town.
“I’m regularly following trends across the country and internationally on what’s happening on both public transit and active transportation,” she said in an interview with Coastreporter.
Keenan hopes the bike bus program will begin this spring.
She discovered bike buses through Sam Balto’s Instagram, where the physical education teacher at Alameda Elementary in Portland shares his “Bike Bus World” movement. The page offers step-by-step guidance on starting bike buses and features heartwarming videos of kids riding together to school.
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Keenan explained that two Charlottetown schools will implement bike buses once a week to transport students. She added that the program will ultimately be led by the school communities themselves.
Travis Saunders, a professor at the University of Prince Edward Island, said that the program is great for a variety of reasons.
“Children who are physically active tend to feel better, emotionally, mentally,” he said. “They learn better in school. They have less behavioural challenges in school.”
Not to mention, having a larger group led by adults is far safer than kids riding on their own–a larger group brings more visibility, and makes for a safer commute.