Is a Bike Bus the Most Joyful Way to Get to School?
Every Friday morning, we wait with our first grader at the corner for the bus to arrive. But instead of a big yellow school bus rolling up, it’s a fleet of parents and kids on bicycles: This is our neighborhood “bike bus.” We hop on our bikes and join, heading off toward the next “stop.” We make our way toward the elementary school, more riders joining in along the way. Some weeks there are dozens of us; sometimes it’s just a handful. No matter how big or small the group, every ride on the bike bus feels like a party.
I’d wanted to join a bike bus ever since January 2025, when I saw a video of the one in Portland, Oregon — which went viral thanks to a guest appearance by Justin Timberlake. I watched JT biking and dancing alongside hundreds of kids, all so pumped to ride to school together, and thought, I want in. That fall, a flyer came home in my daughter’s backpack, announcing the creation of our own neighborhood bike bus, and needless to say, I jumped. We studied the route, found our stop, and made a plan to arrive early.
The morning of our first ride, we pulled up to the corner to wait — the whole family helmeted and giddy. My daughter chatted, one foot on the pavement, the other on the pedal, looking over her shoulder for her friends. My toddler son was strapped into the bike trailer with a giraffe stuffy. We heard the bike bus coming before we saw it — jingling bells and K-pop blasting from a bluetooth speaker. Then it crested the hill and appeared, bike lights flashing and the whole group haloed in the neon glow of reflective safety vests.
My daughter grinned and pushed off from the curb, eager to join the fray. My son was confused. “Where’s the bus?” he asked. “Buddy,” I answered, “We are the bus!”
The bike-bus movement started in the ’90s, but really took off in the U.S. a few years ago, thanks to Sam Balto, the P.E. teacher who started the now-famous Portland bike bus. The concept is simple: Adults volunteer to bike alongside children, making the journey to school both safer and more joyful. Sam co-founded Bike Bus World with New Jersey organizer, Jessica Tillyer. I asked Jessica what inspired her to start a bike bus in her neighborhood. “Biking to school felt lonely,” she told me. “And a little scary, because of the lack of bike infrastructure.” Now, she says, a good bike-bus day draws up to 400 students. “It’s transformed our town.”
Bike Bus World offers guidance and resources for those who want to start their own community bike bus. They suggest having clearly defined roles for adult riders, with kid-friendly titles. There’s the “corker” (who stops the flow of car traffic through an intersection), and the “caboose” (self-explanatory).
Today, there are about 450 bike buses across the country, with hundreds more worldwide. They’ve caught on quickly, not just because they help kids gain the skill and confidence to safely bike to school, but also because they’re inherently community-building. They’ve also brought more attention to the issue of bike infrastructure. (Last month, Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined a bike bus in Brooklyn, and announced plans for a new bike boulevard. See: adorable pic below!) And — did I mention? — they’re a lot of fun.
As for our little bike bus, we just celebrated our last ride of the school year, after dozens of joyful, rain-or-shine commutes. We’ve had bike-bus birthdays with singing at stoplights, and bike-decorating events where we outfitted our bicycles with flags and reflective safety stickers. One morning, our bike-bus leader showed up with a bubble machine attached to the back of his cargo bike, and we pedaled to school in a cloud of bubbles.
On our final ride to school, neighbors waved to us from their front yards. “Happy summer!” they called. And though we’re all psyched for the season, we’re already looking forward to fall — and all the surprises that next year’s bike bus will bring.
Does your community have a bike bus? A Cup of Jo reader named Lily started a bike bus in Baltimore this year, too.
P.S. Biking with kids and how learning to mountain bike helped me in early motherhood.
(Bergen Bike Bus photos by Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office. Alameda Bike Bus photos by David Benhaim/Ready Go Pictures. Bellingham Bike Bus photos by Brian Russell and Kaitlyn Teer.)
Tags: bikes
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112 commentsI live on the street where the OG Portland Bike Bus runs through every Wednesday morning. While my kids are quite school age, we know that every Wednesday morning means “Bike Bus.” I will never forget sprinting out the door with my toddler bouncing on my hip to watch THE JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE bike past our house. And I will never tire of my sleepy toddler running to the window to see the mass of bikers enroute to school while we hear Coach Balto yell “LET’S GO!” Portland you are amazing, and we adore you.
My husband, toddler, and a couple of friends we were visiting were on a covered patio in Longmont, CO when I think we must have witnessed a bike bus pass by! Tons of kiddos and adults and we all waved as they passed and wondered what we had just witnessed. Love it!
Love this! My husband started a Bike Bus in our neighborhood this year and it was a huge success! There were kids that learned to ride for the first time, kids that usually have a hard time getting up in the morning jump out of bed and elderly neighbors that joined in. It is such a great community builder!
My kiddo goes to a specialized program so he’s a bit out of area for his school. If there was a bike bus it wouldn’t go to our house. BUT we have an awesome bi-directional bike lane nearby that we can take almost all the way and I have been biking with him regularly. It’s so great to see his confidence grow! While I’m nervous to let him start biking on his own (this fall maybe??) it’s also such a joy to see him pumping his legs and enjoying the ride <3. Biking is such a good way to start the day.
This is pure delight! Love love love.
I heard about the Barcelona bicibus years ago and thought, ‘That sounds so great but it could never happen in our neighborhood.’ Now, we ride on a bike bus every Friday and kids and adults all love it! We need more separated bike lanes and other infrastructure, and seeing the littles navigating car-centric streets makes the need very clear!
SO SO COOL! I’m in and want to start one! Such a good way to hype and start the day.
I looooove the Bike Bus! Every time I watch one of their videos I cry happy tears. It does indeed seem so joyful. Having moved from London UK to southern Ontario last year I feel so suffocated by car culture (especially as a learner driver without a vehicle of my own). Commuting by bike, by foot or by public transit is so superior to cars! We live quite close to my kids’ school now, but if we ever move I’d do anything for a bike bus commute.
I started a bike bus a couple of years ago in our town in Kansas and it was the highlight of our week every week. Here are some great tips if you’re interested in starting one: https://bikebus.world/how-to-start-a-bike-bus
Omg I love this!! Some of my favourite topics converging! Our family are big cyclists in Calgary, Canada (VERY car centric city) and we love all the little things communities can do to make themselves friendlier for micromobility (non-car-based). We’re scheming to start a Friday bike bus at my daughters’ school this Fall…
ahhhh!! So happy to see this on COJ! That’s my son’s school with JT. Truly a highlight of the year! Such a privilege to be a bike bus school!
I weep happy tears literally any time I see anything about a bike bus. so much JOY!
We have this at our school in DC. It is once a week on Fridays and every child must have a parent with them. It’s generally lovely and when we can join we do, BUT I think it’s fair that some commentors are pointing out the downsides. It takes double or triple the amount of time to get to school because you have varying levels of riders and everyone wants to wait for the group. This includes a lot of near miss or low impact crashes between 5th graders trying to go fast and 1st graders who are still a little wobbly. You take over the entire street and I do worry that in some ways the annoyance it creates for others on the road may hurt some advocacy efforts (not enough to stop doing it, but blocking an entire road for 10 minutes at 8am in a city is not ideal). We bike our kids to school every day on our cargo bike and I have had to go a different route to avoid the bike bus sometimes just to be able to get to school and work on time. eek. Anyway, generally really great and the kids love it. Just agreeing that it is not perfect.
THANK YOU! No one is saying, “this is a terrible idea, it shouldn’t happen.” Some of us just have concerns. I appreciate your insight!!
Hi from the South Pasadena Bike Bus!!!! So glad to see this representation! The thing that surprised me about growing our bike bus from 11 to over 100 people this year was not how much the kids enjoyed it, but how much the parents enjoyed it. We live in California, which is incredibly car centric, and getting all of these people out into the street, feeling safe and having fun on a bike is incredible. I saw someone call it “kidical mass” and I love that. It truly making a difference on how people move around our community.
We’re in the process of revamping our website, but here in Boston we have a volunteer run nonprofit e-bike lending library, and most of our borrowers are parents with children on cargo bikes!! When I started cycling my oldest on a cargo bike in 2018, I’d maybe see one other parent on our 6 mile commute to/from preschool — now I can’t even keep track. We’re everywhere and it’s wonderful. DC, Minneapolis and Charlotesville also have e-bike lending libraries! You can see more about ours at http://www.communitypedalpower.org
This is so cool!!! I would LOVE to do this in my neighborhood. I feel like I need to get better at cycling before my kid starts kindergarten.
I have mixed feelings about this. Of course, it’s eco-friendly and fun! But – if this is happening daily in a location where there are no designated bike lanes, and the flow of traffic for car commuters is stopped significantly – I would be so annoyed. Not to mention the risk of a rogue car hitting a parent or child on accident.
Most organized bike buses run once/week. But, more importantly, roads are not just for cars!!!
What a great opportunity to reflect on urgency culture and how central cars are to everyday life in a lot of places. Does it need to be this way? Could we bring other values to the center – community, fun, eco-friendly choices, enhancing safety for alternative modes of transportation? Personally, I think the rogue vehicles and an infrastructure and culture that nearly always prioritizes them are the problem.
Heaven forbid a driver be annoyed or inconvenienced. Streets are for people, not just cars!
Nickey, I love your response. In the US, we have car supremacy and the culture that prioritizes car speed and driver convenience above all else (above children’s and pedestrian’s lives, above air quality, above quiet cities and the ability to hear bird song, above community, above walkable streets, above small businesses, above our health, above kids’ autonomy and ability to play). Sarah, I would respectfully invite you to challenge your assumptions about what the priority should be on roads. The books Walkable City by Jeff Speck and Happy City by Charles Montgomery are great places to start if you want to start to unpack the way car supremacy and car-oriented development has negatively impacted our quality of life in all the ways I listed above and so many more, and the myriad ways our quality of life improves when we build our communities for people, not cars.
Living in Europe, seeing kids from the age of 10 riding their bikes to school everyday alone wearing helmets of course is “normal”, I guess. But yes, also here we habe many debates about safety, widening safe bike lanes etc. – and sadly progress is made slowly. (Maybe unless you’re living in the Netherlands or Denmark, which I sadly do not.) But it’s so important and maybe an incentive to also improve public transport instead of individual cars. Outcome: less traffic jams. :-)
Sorry, but roads ARE for cars unless there are wide bike lanes and designated places for riders to be. If those are in place, I’m all for it! Just saying if a huge line of bikers holds up my morning commute for 10+ minutes, I wouldn’t love it, and neither would other drivers in my area. Of course I recognize that this is important and cool and needed to reduce pollution, etc. But if there is nothing in place to support it, you can’t expect it to take place on regular roads where cars commute. Cars do rule the road. That’s all.
Not a parent or American but I love these! Such a great idea, hope it goes global!
We live in the “suburbs” of Ghent, Belgium, which voted to become a car-free city (!!) and commute in every day with literally thousands of toddlers, children, teens, and adults — all of streaming into the city on streets that have been painted red and recognized as “fietsstraat” (bike roads). Vehicles are not allowed to overtake even the slowest, most wobbly toddler. We make the entire 3 mile trip without needing to stop at a single light: bike bridges have been built under roads to whisk us under the cars (which are only allowed to travel around the city or on very specific roads within). Some days I cross not even a single vehicle on the whole trip. What about those who can’t ride bikes you ask? There are bike taxi services that ferry older residents around for free. But people also have adapted bikes for every condition: electric trikes for folks with stability issues, low bikes actioned by hands for those with pedaling problems, wheelchair-adapted mobility devices… and an astounding number of tanden bicycles (is it even a tanden when 4 can ride astride?!). Teenagers bike next to each other, creating raucous bike jams that leave me laughing and my husband raging. The commute is my greatest daily joy. All of us on bikes, all of us moving together in this city which has truly found some creative solutions to give the streets back to the bikers. We used to live in the Netherlands, where the bike infrastructure is legendary and built into the urban planning. But the fact that Ghent, which use to be a car-driven city, has found myriad cheap ways to give the streets to the bikers really makes me so profoundly happy (a little paint and some ungainly blocks to stop cars go a long way). There’s no bad bike weather–only bad bike clothing! (We even biked, very, very, slowly, during the snowstorms — there is literally no other way to get into town so we just did it!). If Ghent can do, other towns can too. Older residents who remember the car-happy days grumble, but I see them out their on their bikes now, too ;)
This is fascinating! Thanks for sharing this, Maude!
this makes me so happy!
tandem*! … […] I see them out there* on their bikes now, too… Oh, the joys of not using AI to edit and catching my own spelling mistakes! And if anyone is interested in what Ghent did, this page provides a list of city reserouces (bike shares, bike lanes, etc) including a cool video on how Ghent has changed since it went car free in 2017: https://stad.gent/en/mobility-ghent/cycling-policy
This sounds lovely, but what if you aren’t able to bike for a myriad of reasons? disability, mobility issues, or simple lack of skills. Or what if you need to get somewhere quickly – like the hospital? Genuinely curious
Sarah, you can ask for a derogation in order to use a car within the city, either for a limited time (to move for instance) or long term. Taxis, buses, and ambulances are allowed to circulate at will, as are cars with the permits (which include car shares!). The public transportation is pretty good, but could be better in the burbs. I think delivery transportation is the main sticking point for those who oppose the plan: it can be hard for small businesses to get large deliveries that can’t arrive on bike. Delivery vans need special permissions that they need to acquired in advance, etc. (And yes, we bike to the hospital! Even in emergencies. It’s so much faster and we don’t own a car.)
Sarah, you ask, “what if you aren’t able to bike for a myriad of reasons? disability, mobility issues, or simple lack of skills.” In Maude’s comment she addresses this: “What about those who can’t ride bikes you ask? There are bike taxi services that ferry older residents around for free. But people also have adapted bikes for every condition: electric trikes for folks with stability issues, low bikes actioned by hands for those with pedaling problems, wheelchair-adapted mobility devices…” Also, it’s important to remember that in environments built for cars we have the opposite problem. Not everyone can drive: my friend who has epilepsy, my grandma who has dementia, my neighbor who is a quadriplegic, my teenage kids who are too young, my church congregation member who is blind, ANYONE who can’t afford to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a vehicle and the registration, insurance, gas, and maintenance required. In the US, millions of people are barred from fully participating in public life in places where life is oriented around cars. Maybe those people aren’t so visible to you because they’re marginalized, but they are people who matter nonetheless and they deserve to be able to move freely around the commun
Oops, comment submitted before I finished typing. Those who cannot drive deserve to be able to move freely around the community too. When we design cities for people, not cars, everyone benefits.
I read about Ghent in the book Life After Cars! It’s a dream coming from a rural town in the United States…
Coming from a country with a lot of bike infrastructure, it’s admirable how U.S.-Americans just know how to make everything fun. A lot of our cities have a “Critical Mass” bike ride once a month, but riding every day to school with a party bike bus is so cool!!
That was my thought exactly. My kids have to ride their bike to school every single day (come rain or shine), but without the party. Sometimes they have a little crowd but for sure no loud music and singing.
This convinces me more and more that we will save each other. We don’t need politicians. We don’t need businesses. We don’t need fancy performative leaders. We just need to show up for each other, time after time and in the most joyful ways. Also, this is the best thing on the internet- hands down!!
Thank you for spotlighting bike buses! I live in Portland, OR (about 20min from the ‘famous’ Bike Bus that had JT ride) and I started a bike bus last fall for my kid’s school. It has completely transformed our community! We ride every Friday rain or shine. Kids are so resilient, and the research on how beneficial this is for our kids is impressive and motivating. On the last day of school we had nearly half of the students bike to school! …and almost every parent was crying because of how nostalgic, sweet, and beautiful it is seeing sooo many children biking to their neighborhood school. Can’t recommend it enough!
This post sparked so much joy. Thank you!
Bike bus – what a cool idea! I live in Auckland, New Zealand, and walking school buses are common for neighborhood schools. It’s such a wonderful way to have the whole village share the morning commute load while getting everyone some fresh air and exercise to start the day.
I appreciate the reminder of this phenomenon, and here to simply applaud attention to cycling in all forms. Sooo curious if this renaissance of bike busses might impact our future biking infrastructure! Nineties small-town kid here who got the luxury of biking everywhere (alone, with neighbors, to the mall etc). Thanks to my quaint community upbringing plus a deep rebellious streak, I find myself a lifelong cyclist at 40 who has never owned a car (and yes, cycled 10 years in the deep south, with a FT executive job in a city notoriously evil for non-car drivers). Big believer in going through the stages of exploration –hullo critical mass and poorly conceived drag races–, learning from accidents, and being an aggressive cyclist at all ages. Parents, please remind your young cyclists not to take it personally but they are the lowest on the food chain in this country (I bike around in my neon vest assuming all drivers are watching videos on their phones at all times, which is how I attribute not having been in an accident for years). Push the helmets and lights, and especially teach your girls they can do anything, with a lot of determined self-preservation and some mastery of basic rules. A buddy system like a bike bus is a great place to start!
Our town has a walking school bus, in which older adults volunteer to walk kids within close proximity to school. It is the most heartwarming thing in the entire world. https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/valley/people/closeup/the-magic-of-the-walking-school-bus/article_41fbc1ae-b3bd-11ee-834e-ab0e05dd5400.html
This is fantastic! Coach Sam Balto (Bike Bus World founder) recently came to speak to our bike bus and he shared that he actually started the movement first as walking buses. Whether you’re walking, biking, or taking transit, life is better when we get out of our cars!
Also, we were featured on NYC local news this fall, the reporter said it was one of her favorite assignments ever! The parents are amazing, the kids are where it’s at and the marshals/volunteers are incredible (they come week after week to support our kids) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t98_zZCkxNc
Pediatric occupational therapist here. I would love to know whether the teachers notice improved attention and emotional regulation on bike bus days, because getting a big dose of exercise, fresh air, and social time before having to sit still and concentrate is golden.
Mom of a kid who gets OT at school (along with PT, ST, and sp ed) and while we are only a sample set of one, we notice a STARK difference on days when he walks to school vs gets a car ride. We deliberately moved to a walking-friendly community, trading off yard size and closet space to live in tight-packed 100 yr old homes walking distance from EVERYTHING. We no longer really notice how good the days are when he walks because it’s nearly every day, but moreso notice that the days he gets a ride are the really hard days at school. It’s absolutely predictable, that’s how consistent it is. I cannot express enough how excited I am to see the ideas of walking/biking busses build momentum, because EVERYONE benefits. Oh, maybe not the cars who have to wait a tad longer as another commenter pointed out, but honestly a driver in their comfy car can afford to hang tight for 45 seconds while a bike bus goes through the intersection.
That’s so great to hear. I once did a school visit for a little girl in kindergarten and saw that the classroom door led directly to the playground. I asked the teacher if it was possible to have the children leave their coats on in the morning and then take them outside for ten minutes before starting class. She reported back after a week that it was the best year she’d ever had in terms of behavior.
Love this! We started the Brooklyn bike bus for my kids’ school, PS 770, and joined Bergen Bike Bus the day Mayor Mamdani hopped along (and we all are quite close in the Brooklyn bike bus world). It really is a movement full of joy and many wheels of getting kids safely to school. We have one more bike bus left this year and the kids (and parents!) are already sad about that. Anyone is welcome to join–find us on IG @ps770bikebus
Aw, way to go Bham! This doesn’t surprise me :) But it is surprising to recognize the street in a COJ photo!
Yayyyy portland represent!
I love this! But as someone who knows someone who recovered from a life-altering bike injury only because her helmet broke instead of her skull, I really, really want US adults to model staying safe. Her accident was alone with a pothole. We have a bike bus in our town and parents ride alongside their kids without helmets and I want to scream. I have curly hair and get that helmet hair is annoying but gosh, please be safe. I specified US as I know other countries have glorious cycling infrastructure but we aren’t there, yet.
I am always amazed when I see people biking around cars without helmets. Why????
Ugh, I know. I hope with more bike infrastructure will encourage more helmet compliance? I live in a college town/mid-size city and you’re lucky to see a single person wearing a helmet. It’s alarming and sad and terrifying as a driver. I think we need a “helmet hair is cool!” (Or whatever the cool word for cool is these days) campaign!
YES it bothers me that adults in this photo are not wearing helmets!! it’s not just cars that can injure you; other cyclists can, road hazards (like the pothole you reference), etc. If you are on two wheels you should be wearing a helmet, period. And especially if you are sharing the road with CARS! As a cyclist myself, if we want cars to take us seriously then we better take them seriously.
So sorry to hear your friend was in a terrible accident! That is our worst nightmare as cyclists and bike commuters. Not at all to belittle your message because helmets certainly can’t hurt, but I do think the helmet conversation is worth exploring. I found this video super informative and helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhzH6mEpIps From the peer reviewed research referenced “It is exceedingly rare to be seriously injured on a bicycle. The cycling hospitalization rate is only 633 per 100,000,000 trips and of these 633 hospitalizations, only 25% involved an injury to the head.” I’d love for us to focus more on other much more effective methods of injury prevention (ex: speed limits, infrastructure) rather than just putting the impetus on cyclists to wear helmets.
Audrey, good point. A cyclist can do EVERYTHING right (helmet, reflective clothing, obeying rules of the road, riding defensively) but the number one factor that will determine the outcome of a collision with a vehicle is how fast the driver is going. Speeding is so dangerous but so many people do it so casually.
I just saw a bike bus here in Belsize Park, London! Awesome!
So happy to see this post, as I just finished reading the book LIFE AFTER CARS this weekend. It’s a very quick and informative read, and I’d encourage anyone with even a tiny bit of curiosity about alternatives to driving, parking, and exhaust fumes choking up our streets to read it.
Yes, thank you! I’ve been listening to the podcast for years. Gobbled the book right up and I passed it to a friend.
I agree with Maureen: allowing school children a way of expending energy before the school day is so healthy, physically and mentally. Bike buses seem to build community, too. I’m all for a fabulous bike ride with friends and neighbors and school children. Cleveland, Ohio does a Slow Roll every Monday night with all ages, sizes, and shapes of cyclists. Bike buses and Slow Rolls provide so much positivity!
This is so awesome!!!! I relocated for the weather, and I don’t regret that one bit, but man, I really miss a dense, congested city where things like this happen. Southern California, you are pretty, but the lack of infrastructure and camaraderie really suck sometimes.
I wanted to add a comment about another “non-standard” mode of transportation (with kids) that can feel joyful. (Non-standard, at least, in certain places and among certain demographics in the US…) I’ve been taking the bus places with my kids since they were babies (they’re now 9 and 13), and I feel like I’m able to be much more present with them on the bus than I would be if I were behind the wheel. Somebody else is driving. I can chat with my kids and make eye contact and be physically together. (When they were little, we often snuggled.) If I’m going somewhere new, then I have to pay close attention when we’re getting close to our stop, but even then, I can just focus on my kids for most of the ride. We have had a lot of fun on the bus over the years. Also, I love that the bus is a microcosm of the city (we live in Minneapolis)–it’s less segregated by socio-economic class than some individual neighborhoods can be.
I love this. Life really is better when you get out of your car, whether that’s riding transit, walking, or riding your bike. You feel so much more connected to your community and more present with your kids.
Yes for bus love! Alexandria, VA made their DASH Bus system free in 2021 and it’s wonderful. A clean, friendly, efficient way to get around town. If you live somewhere with an accessible bus system, I strongly recommend getting your kids on it. Our buses have bike racks to address the “last mile” concern as well.
Yes yes and yes! We moved to a walkable city with decent transportation, and both the buses and the walking are great for our whole family of five (including small children). They see more, exercise more, learn more about neighbors, see more diversity in our city, plus they know that public transportation is important way to reduce our family’s environmental footprint. So many things for which I am grateful.
Absolutely! I wish we had a different name for “bike bus” because I love bike bus but it isn’t something accessible to all like a school bus, or even with as low a barrier to entry as a city bus. (I have the same kind of language problem with little free libraries: big libraries are free too!)
The first time I saw the video of the Portland bike bus I teared up – it’s just so joyful! We walk to school and it’s a highlight of each day.
Yayyyyy! Cargo bike mom here and I’ve been waiting and waiting for Cup of Jo to have a post on bike buses or car free living. My Madsen Cycles bike is my happiness machine and I can carry my four kids in it (though my oldest two like to ride their own bikes now). Riding to and from school with our bike bus is the highlight of our day!
Cargo bikes moms are the GOAT.
Thanks, Kelly! Your comment made my day.
I started a bike bus for our school in San Antonio! It was joyful, and was a real advocacy tool to get council members to pay attention and gather support. Sam Balto offers free chatting sessions on bike bus world if you need help planning anything. normalizing biking as transportation is essential. We parents are so afraid but biking can be so fun and freeing. We just moved from San Antonio to Austin so I’m leaving”my”bike bus behind to other committed parents. It was usually kinder—3rd grade range, and prek kids on cargo bikes or trailers. Luckily our new neighborhood in Austin already has a bike bus. Honestly if you can start one do it! It will make your whole day every time.
We have one for our DC school and it brings SO MUCH JOY! Let’s keep it going! More bikes, less cars!
Yesss!!!
What a joyful story, thanks for sharing! When I lived in Portland, OR in the 90s we would do “critical mass” bike rides and cyclists would take over the streets. At the time it felt punk and rebellious and was always so much fun. This wholesome version for kids is delightful, and I imagine it will inspire a new generation of bike commuters. xx
I tried to start a bike bus in a suburban/rural town where I live, since the schools are two miles away, and both roads that lead to them are dangerous, mostly because of harried parents rushing their kids to school in cars and a lack of bicycle infrastructure. The plan failed, probably having more to do with the climate and age group than anything else (hot and humid, middle schoolers). No one wanted to get to school sweaty, and middle schoolers prefer not to ride alongside adults. So we abandoned the dream. Any ideas of how to navigate the two things I mentioned, welcome!
Erin, are there possibilities for separated bike lane development along one or both of the busy routes? You’re so right that the middle school crowd will want to be independent, though if routes are safer and protected, it’s easier to empower older kids and teens to break off in friends groups. Might be infrastructure worth lobbying for the long term solutions (plus, more multimodal transport usually equals less congestion)! Good luck!
Perfect timing–my husband has been talking about starting a bike bus in our town! Like someone else said, this doesn’t necessarily help kids learn how to navigate safely on a bike on their own, BUT in my town at least, elevating the visibility of bikes/kid riders will help the overall safety. People drive around like pedestrians and cyclists don’t exist and it’s scary! I am scared to ride my bike anywhere in my town but my own little walkable neighborhood. But a bike bus (along with advocacy) might start some important changes w/ bike lanes, etc.!
That’s awesome, I hope you and your husband manage it! I would suggest also doing a bike drive at the beginning, and/or coordinating with the school if they do a learning to bike curriculum in PE. I know when some of the bike busses started near us, they were seen as very private club-y, and its been an uphill battle to change that perception after the fact, so I recommend starting out as welcoming as possible!
My daughter rides with the bike bus to school and I love it so much! It’s about 2.5 kms to her elementary school and they stop right outside our front door to pick her up. I wave goodbye with a little tear in my eye every time, it makes me so happy. They take a snow break every Jan-March and she’s always very eager to get back to it in the spring :)
Also important: The Bike Bus Playlist!! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5USBjTJgjv07GUlKEE1de8?si=pbLnB29vRnWFwXrwPb1Y0w
I wish we could do this! We live rurally on a very fast, dangerous road. I’m kind of dreaming of moving to a more neighborhoody, villagey town. But it definitely feels intimidating to uproot and move.
Oh but think of the new found joy and excitement of doing something loving for yourself!! I have moved a lot in my life and it has always been worth the initial risk and fear.
How amazing is that! Citizens getting together to add joy? Yes that’s so what we need! Lovely post! Love from Paris. Do we have bus bikes here?
We don’t have a bike bus. But my kids bike to school. My daughter started when she was 7. Lots of raised eyebrows but I don’t care. Most liberating thing ever and they LOVE the independence of going to and from school without their parents!
You want a fun time as an adult? Go to Night Ize . com, get yourself some bike lights- whatever floats your boat- and have an evening ride with your friends. Daytime group rides are fun, too. We do group rides with a theme of places to visit, mapped out “bakery trail” or “Bikes and Beers” to your favorite pub. It’s a lot of fun, you build community, exercise, spend money locally, and get a little vitamin D.
Instant joy! This is pure happiness on a Monday morning.
I watch an account with a bike bus, and it’s so Portland! I love it. I’d love to see the east coast be more bike friendly, but I won’t hold my breath. Before I had kids, I only biked. We used to do this thing in Boston called Critical Mass and we’d form and ride around the bike for hours. I was young, in college, had a vague idea of the money I was in debt for and so carefree. Sigh. We need more joy like this in our lives. This is up there with the Scottish Invasion. It’s all I want to see.
I’ve heard of bike buses in NC towns, so it’s definitely possible outside of more typically bike-forward places!
I have sadly barely spent time in the south, but northern cities it’s really very dangerous with the way people drive and how they were built.
Proud to say I’m actually going to NC for a week, next week! I’ll report back.
I love this so much. We have a Bunch cargo bike, and I’d love to do a bike bus where we live. But my 3 kids go to 3 different schools, with different start times. So I’m not sure it’ll happen for me, but more bikes is always the best!
I really like biking. I bike to work year round and biked a lot as a kid to school, two miles away. I think all kids should learn to bike safely, as it is a transport option that kids can employ alone. The bike bus doesn’t seem to help this goal, though. First, every rider needs to learn to negotiate the road–watching for cars, potholes, stop signs, etc. Riding in a group in the middle of the street does not do this. Second, the bike bus seems like another instance of adults taking a regular childhood activity and maximizing it so it’s “fabulous” (singing, bubbles, your whole family accompanying you as if it’s a triumphal entry). America needs a mix of transportation options, especially those that are less polluting. How about families focus on kids commuting to school on their own, where this is feasible? That would look like parents walking or riding to school with kids until the kids could do this on their own or in kid groups. Advocating for and building sidewalks and bike lanes. Everyday action, not a Friday bike parade.
I suspect you’ll get pushback for this, but I agree that it doesn’t teach kids road safety or how to bike to their destination independently. On the other hand, it’s hard to deny that it looks like fun and could inspire a kid who’s hesitant about biking to give it a try.
truly the voice of reason
Andrea- I don’t see how the bike bus affects the other options you listed. It’s just an additional option. It doesn’t solve for some of the things you brought up (autonomy, navigating road rules alone..) but it solves for different problems. In my community we have used bike buses and a walking bus because the area surrounding the school isn’t safe. The area surrounding the neighborhood school has a high rate of violence and drug use. Adults help navigate that situation and keep kids active and safe.
A bike bus is an awesome way to encourage more people to give biking a try. From what I’ve seen, many bike Bus participants are also advocates for more biking all around. And in Chicago, I know even adults have bike bus opportunities. My friends who are serious by commuters independently also enjoy biking with other people.
Andrea, I’m pretty sad to see this negativity on such a joyous post, especially from a fellow cyclist. My kids and I are part of a bike bus that rides together every Friday; we also hold regular safety trainings for the kids, and all the bike bus parents are also members of our city’s safe streets advocacy group and regularly attend City Council meetings to advocate for safety improvements. (Recently our mayor rode with our bike bus and then went to bat for us to avoid widening a road our kids have to cross on the way to school!) Riding in the bike bus has ABSOLUTELY empowered the kids to ride on their own to and from school, which they do every day even when it’s not an official bike bus day. There’s nothing wrong with rewarding them with some fun music and treats once per week! I find your take a little bizarre. As cyclists and pedestrians we should be banding together against dangerous speeding drivers and people texting while driving, not criticizing each other’s efforts to make a greener, more joyful world for our kids.
A benefit of a bike bus is also safety in numbers, especially in places where cycling commuters are not a norm. Folks who might not cycle in the road can join this safer alternative!
This is kind of a bummer comment from someone who is a bike commuter! EVERYTHING that we can do to raise awareness of the lack of cycling infrastructure, the dangerous dominance of cars on our streets, and the joy inherent in getting to work and school on a bike is a good thing. And infighting with other people who are trying to make it easy, safe, and fun for kids to bike to school only helps the pro-car movement.
It’s fun, it’s social, it’s exercise, it gets kids outside, it creates community. I am a biker and an educator and I promote this joyful activity and I also promote independent biking and learning the rules of the road. We can celebrate biking with each other and blow bubbles on Fridays all we want. It is community. It is joy.
I understand your comment, particularly the learning the rules of the road bit. But as a parent (and bike commuter) who organized and participated in this type of bike transit with kids, one big benefit of riding in a big group like this is that it teaches kids to be comfy on their bikes, especially for some kids who don’t have the opportunity “to go ride bikes” otherwise. Also, kids learn to NOT steer with their eyeballs pretty fast in a big group, which is so important for road safety. I think these skills are almost as important as understanding the rules of the road. Plus, just like group singing, group bike riding is AWESOME. What an amazing way to start the day.
To everyone who thinks I am a killjoy, let’s think about why 11% of kids ride or walk to school now, down from 42% in the1960s. Riding a bike or walking to school is a skill that is valuable and needs to be developed by kids, with guidance from their parents. That might mean not driving everywhere, riding with them to talk through dangers, to let them go off on their bikes by themselves and/or with other kids. This is individual learning and autonomy. In contrast, the bike bus is adults stepping in and emphasizing it as a performative party rather than individual skill building. That looks great and fun on the surface, but it’s not about getting kids to take on their own safe transport individually (which the author finds lonely!) or with other kids. Like the bike bus? Start riding with your kids to errands, or to school. See if there are other kids nearby who would want to meet up and commute to school or soccer together. That regular movement toward autonomy helps kids.
Andrea, I am still scratching my head over your comments. Yes, kids commuting by bikes is down from the 1960s but I don’t think it’s fair to point fingers at bike buses or claim that parents aren’t teaching their kids (I hope that’s not what you’re doing? I’m not really sure what your implying with your second comment). Today’s cars weigh an average of 25% more than in the early 2000s and many drivers are distracted by their phones; perhaps that is one of the (multifactorial, complex) reasons kids aren’t biking as much. Auto-pedestrian fatalities are at an all-time high and some parents don’t feel safe letting their kids bike. The housing market and suburban zoning are also factors; charter schools are a factor. The reasons are complex and overlapping. We are a family who bikes everywhere: to school, to sports, to the library, to the grocery store. We LOVE our bike bus and the way it has connected us with other like-minded families and kids who love to bike. My kids have gained enough road experience that they can safely ride with their friends (without parental supervision) to one another’s houses or to the park or library. Our individual bike commuting is enhanced and supported by our bike bus. Our kids’ autonomy and safety on their bikes is in no way undermined by their participation in their weekly bike bus.
Andrea, the issue is that you think it’s an either/or situation. You can be a family who encourages independence with bike riding AND enjoy the community of a bike bus. It’s also important to recognize that many families don’t have the time and resources to dedicate to frequent biking with their kids and that the bike bus might be a prime way for them to experience a non-car commute. It’s kind of like being a camping purist and saying people should only be backpacking if they want to truly experience the wilderness when car camping is social and fun/more accessible for families.
I agree with both of these takes, but find the reflex of commenters that any negativity is inappropriate to be frustrating. Bike bus _is_ fun and can be inspiring, but it can’t be the end of bike safety teaching, and it can be very alienating to kids who watch classmates arrive at school in a very fun way, but whose families don’t have the monetary or time resources to participate. If only positive comments are allowed, how is anyone learning about this concept for the first time to get a balanced view?
Bike bus does do all the things you’ve listed. My goal for the elementary kids on our bus is that they “graduate” and have a built in group they can ride to middle school with. What I’ve seen in our bus is that it gives families the confidence to ride alone on other days, not just bus days. Adults themselves are scared to get out there, not kids. We absolutely still navigate cars and potholes and call out turning directions and learn how to stop. And the same parents who ride the bus are now my allies in advocacy for bike lanes with our city. And to the last bit… yeah, riding a bike is fun, isn’t that why we do it? When kids seeing that is a party that they want to join, it gets their parents out of their car and into the streets. And this is in California!!
I remember seeing a video of the bike bus and felt instant joy. I hope there’s something like this when my daughter starts school. If not…. maybe I’ll lead the charge!
Love this!
This is timely – my son starts school in August and the school he will be attending was the first school in Scotland to start a bike bus! He loves riding his bike and the burst of exercise and endorphins will be the perfect way for him to start the school day.
This is awesome!
That’s lovely, Maureen! One of the joys of studying my masters in teaching as an American in Scotland was witnessing the myriad ways children traveled to/from school without cars. I loved how schools were dedicated to helping children travel safely, healthfully, and, often, independently by foot, cycle, scooter, or bus. Perhaps most incredibly, from my American perspective, was how schools took this on as a key issue to raise with parent and governmental councils, advocating as necessary for funding and infrastructure improvements to improve outcomes for children. Sadly, this is far from the norm in most parts of America where commuting to and from school is often thought of largely the parent’s concern and takes place via private car. Admittedly, our schools are more geographically spread out than in Scotland, but there’s so much room for improvement. I really appreciated the collective, community mindset of Scotland and all the ways leadership was developed from an early age. It felt so mindful of children’s long term success, rather than focused on adults’ immediate needs. I digress! Of course, neither country is without its challenges, but I learned massively from Scotland’s example and am eager to bring so many of the ideas to my American teaching practice. Thanks for the lovely memory!
Thanks so much for these words, Claire. I’m apprehensive about some of the elements of my son starting the schooling system, going into the factory production line as it were, so I hope your positive words are correct. The Bike Bus was started by parents and apparently the school still has a very proactive and productive PTA who recently fought against great odds to receive funding for an eco garden for the school. The school is state (what Americans would call public) in a city where government funding has been decimated, so this determined approach from the parents makes a crucial difference to the education experience of the kids.