Streets Ahead joins a Bike Bus!

Streets Ahead

Ned and Laura join a bike bus! This celebratory, festive episode of Streets Ahead includes an East End bike ride with tinsel, some Christmas tunes, and a joyful pedal through the streets of West Ham with adults and kids, to Park Primary School.

A bike bus is simply a group ride to school, with both adults and kids joining at different points on set days, similar to a school bus. Except everyone pedals, or wheels their way together. Some bike buses are weekly, some fortnightly, some monthly. The idea is to make the cycle, wheel or scoot to school safe and fun - and to spread the word that cycling to school is possible.

Bike buses began in earnest in 2019, with a handful of pioneers riding to school in groups. Our own Adam Tranter ran a bike bus with his wife and kids after fellow parents expressed an interest in their cargo bike commute: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/10/11/pr-company-bosses-lead-20-child-pedal-posse-to-show-council-that-cycling-to-school-is-unsafe/

As pandemic-era school streets were introduced by more and more councils in the UK, restricting motor traffic at the school gates for the start and end of the academic day, more streets felt safe for cycling, and more families formed their own bike buses. There are now an estimated 70 of them - at least those that are publicly advertised.

Because a bike bus is simply people riding to school together, not all of them publicise their activities. They can be as informal as a few parents or carers and their kids getting together.

Some bike buses are registered on www.bikebus.org - there are an estimated 50 of these, for inspiration.

Thank you to Hamish Belding, for his advice for this episode. You can follow Hamish's adventures here: https://bsky.app/profile/bikewalkscoot.bsky.social

FRideDays Bike Bus is hosted by active travel charity Sustrans, and offers support for organisers, with materials like marshal tabards and a free guide. Find out more here: https://www.sustrans.org.uk/campaigns/fridedays-bike-bus/. There are around 20 of these bike buses. Hamish says Cardiff x 8, Swansea, Caerphilly, Pembroke, Plymouth, Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Dorset, Reading, London and Edinburgh. There are more Bike Buses in pipeline to be launched during Spring/Summer term – potentially in London, Wolverhampton, Tonbridge and Cardiff.

Thank you to Better Streets for Newham for the photo of Ned in action: https://bsky.app/profile/betterstsnewham.bsky.social

Thank you for tuning in for 2024! We appreciate all of our listeners and supporters and look forward to more adventures in 2025.

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