Want your kids to jump out of bed to get to school? Put them on the bike bus.
In my suburban New Jersey town there’s a new old-fashioned way to get to school in the morning. We call it the bike bus, but the only thing about it that resembles a school bus is the yellow safety vests kids wear when they cycle to school.
We live in Montclair, roughly 12 miles west of New York City. People move here for diversity, schools, and culture. We have a college, movie theater, art museum, and Stephen Colbert. But what was missing was a way for kids to safely bike to school. Residents said there were too many cars on the roads and insufficient biking infrastructure. Also: the unrelenting speeding. Parents didn’t feel comfortable letting their young kids bike to school unsupervised.
According to a 2011 report by the National Center for Safe Routes to School, nearly 50 percent of American school-age children walked or biked to school in the late 1960s. In 2009, only 13 percent did.
In 2022, a group of Montclair parents realized if they wanted their kids to bike to school the way they did when they were children they were going to have to initiate change. They launched a local bike bus, modeling it after similar bike buses around the world, including one in Barcelona. They were also influenced by Sam Balto, a Portland, Ore., gym teacher who leads one of the largest bike buses in the country and has become a de facto spokesperson for the movement. It’s a straightforward concept — schoolchildren and their parents meet up at a central spot and the bike bus picks up riders along the route to school.
We don’t have neighborhood schools in Montclair; it’s a magnet system and kids are bused from one end of town to the other. The schools have multiple routes because people are coming from all over town. We post routes and timetables online and in WhatsApp groups.
Our bike bus launches from a local bookstore. Once a week, on Fridays, we gather at 8:15 a.m., and by 8:22 we’re on our way. It’s a 2-mile ride that takes 20 minutes from start to finish.
Adults have key roles: The captain leads the ride and keeps track of time, the caboose shepherds any latecomers or slower riders, and the corker helps move the group through intersections. One frequent captain is a grandfather who is an avid cyclist and has two grandchildren on the bike bus route.
Many of the Montclair routes have a core group of kids. There’s always some attrition during winter but come May we’re expecting to see some new faces.
On a sunny Friday we might have as many as 300 riders. The bike bus has become so popular at my son’s elementary school that it needed an extra rack to accommodate the bikes. Kids arrive at school smiling and feeling energized. The bike bus is a great way for kids and parents to exercise together and build confidence. In fact it’s so popular the group is sponsoring adult-only bike rides around town.
Bike buses are popping up in other parts of the country, too, especially in New England. There are several in Greater Boston: Cambridge, Lexington, Jamaica Plain, Lincoln, Somerville, West Roxbury, and Waltham just to name a few. Bike buses are also gaining momentum in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
Dorothy “Dot” Fennell is a parent and Boston-based transportation planner. She bikes with her kids to their school in Jamaica Plain year-round and has helped organize a route. “When my kids bike to school, they’re happy. It’s a joyful thing to see,” said Fennell, who specializes in transportation demand management and parking solutions. Fennell said her bike bus route started organically, with eight families who had a similar idea. “I knew a bunch of other parents who were biking their kids to school and said, we’re going the same way. … Why don’t we work together?”
She said they started a group text and decided to meet up once a week.
Ultimately, Fennell said she wants her three children to become more independent and get around on their own. But she doesn’t trust drivers to look out for her kids. “I need more bikers around because that means my kids are going to be safer by extension.”
She said it’s the folks who are moving by bike or on foot who are the most vulnerable in the transportation landscape.
Parents want their children to be able to bike to school safely and enjoy themselves. But they are also looking for more permanent changes to infrastructure: traffic-calming measures, better crosswalks, and dedicated bike lanes. And while police enforcement can play a role, experts like Fennell say it’s never enough.
“You know what’s more important than traffic enforcement?” Fennell asked. “Designing your landscape to be welcoming, convenient, and safe to cyclists.”
Looking forward, bike bus experts like Sam Balto worry that cities won’t ever commit to infrastructure changes if parents continually step in and ride with their kids.
And advocates say they’d like to see kids biking to school more than once a week.
But they acknowledge that significant changes are necessary to ensure that bike buses aren’t limited to neighborhoods with families who can afford to chaperone weekly rides.
As the weather warms in New Jersey and it starts to feel more like spring, bike bus organizers are doubling down on efforts to get people pedaling by offering weekend rides to local playgrounds. They’re also tabling at school fairs and cosponsoring a bike swap. Organizers are always looking for novel ways to encourage young riders and their grownups to buckle their helmets and join in some old-fashioned fun.