All Aboard the Bike Bus!
“People are incredibly caring and sacrifice so much for their kids, but they have this blind spot around cars. The thing that’s killing kids and ruining our communities is cars. And we’re not talking about it!”
—Sam Balto
We recently featured the weekly “Bike Bus” at Alameda Elementary here in Portland, OR in our September newsletter, as an example of small collective actions catching on and becoming social tipping points that can lead to big structural changes. The bike bus was started in April of 2022, and in six months later had become so large and popular that it was featured in a segment on the NBC nightly news in October! A lot of parents get excited when they see a video showing how joyous biking to school in a group is for children, and want to know more about how they could start something like that at their kids’ schools.
The leader behind this bike bus is Sam Balto, who teaches PE at Alameda. He is passionate about active transportation, and an expert in walking and biking school buses. Sam also traveled to England this summer to learn more about the development of school streets there. (“School streets” are when the street in front of a school is temporarily closed off to car traffic during arrival and dismissal time, which measurably improves air quality, as well as ensuring student safety. It also transforms the experience of drop-off and pick-up from being car-centered to student, family, and community centered. Intrigued? Tired of dangerous, polluting traffic jams at your kid’s school at drop-off and pick-up? Check out the short YouTube video Sam made about his trip!)
We chatted with Sam, and got some great tips for folks who are curious about what it takes to start a biking or walking school bus at their own schools.
Start small! Find another family or two who are into the idea to get the bus rolling. Sam found other champions by hanging out by the bike rack before and after school and talking to parents who were biking with their children.
Pass out fliers with a map of the route and meeting times. If you can work with the PTA and admin to get the word out, that’s great, but you don’t have to start there. Don’t put barriers in your own way or make it too complicated.
Be consistent. Do it on a weekly or biweekly or monthly basis, so that families can plan around it.
Publicize and promote it afterwards! Take videos and share them on social media! Sam’s videos of the Alameda bike bus are getting major views and love on TikTok right now. The kids’ freedom and joy as they bike to school is striking a real chord.
Sam suggests a ratio of 10-15 students to one adult, with one grown-up in the front, one in the back, and one designated grownup with a first aid kid who can help if a kid takes a spill and stay with them.
But hey—wouldn’t it be cool if there was money to actually pay people to run biking and walking school buses, instead of relying on parent volunteers? Sam is currently trying to get a bill in the pipeline here in Oregon that would allow flexibility around student transportation funds, which currently can only be used to pay for buses.
Want even more info? Sam also just guest-wrote a post over at Bike Portland that goes into more details. And Megan Ramey, a mom and safe streets advocate in Hood River organizes a very successful biking school bus there. You can listen to her talk about it on this episode of the Active Towns podcast.
Finally, and most importantly, Sam says not to expect to pull off the scale of what he’s doing (at least right out of the gate) and to remember that the communal aspect of the bike bus is key:
“Celebrate every new kid and every new family that joins you, every person who chooses to change how they do things to participate in this with you, celebrate the sh*t out of that: that’s where the change is, with the connections we’re making. Because we’re never going to combat climate change with all of us disconnected in our cars. The only way we’re going to do it is by being connected in our communities.”