Hundreds pedal to bike day at Monta Vista High
Whether it was the prospect of free boba tea or a desire to reduce their school’s carbon footprint, almost 200 students rode their bikes and scooters to Monta Vista High School on its first Boba Bike Day for the Environment on Sept. 24.
According to organizers, the day’s ridership represented an increase of 16% over the school’s daily average of 165 riders thus far in the new school year.
“Our participation goals were exceeded for this pop-up event, and is a great starting point for our movement to reduce our school’s carbon footprint,” said Monta Vista Interact Club President Roy Liao.
The club organized the event along with Monta Vista’s student leadership council and Walk-bike Cupertino. Mr. Tea Boba Shop gave coupons to student participants, and Cupertino’s Safe Routes to School program provided free bike safety items for all riders.
Planned as a monthly event during the fall, Boba Bike Day’s goal is to incentivize students to ride their bikes to school and to use alternate forms of transportation in their daily lives. The next Bike for Boba Day is scheduled for Oct. 22. Walk-bike Cupertino member Dino Sakkas estimates that Monta Vista students who regularly ride their bikes are decreasing the school’s carbon footprint by 389 tons of CO2 per year and that daily biking eliminates over 300 car trips per day to the congested campus area.
Safety as well as environmental concerns are driving efforts to get students out of their cars. Nearly half of Monta Vista’s student population resides in neighborhoods near Blackberry Farm and Mcclellan Ranch Park off Mcclellan Road and Stevens Creek Boulevard, areas that are particularly difficult for cyclists to navigate. According to Larry Dean of Walk-bike Cupertino, this results in significantly higher auto commutes than at other campuses in the Fremont Union High School District.
To help alleviate congestion
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408-920-5000 and make it safer for cyclists to get to the high school, Dean said, the city is moving on its Monta Vista Bike Boulevard project and
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