FABB Blog

But when I was a kid, like you just said, I rode to school. And there's a difference today, it seems, between recreation and transportation. A lot of kids still ride bikes, but they kind of do it with their parents on the weekend for fun. But the idea of actually using a bicycle to get somewhere is alien to them. Oliver Robinson, who is the superintendent of schools in Clifton Park, just south of Saratoga Springs, who has done a lot of great things there for kids and bikes, he admitted to me that even his own sons, they ride up and down the street for an hour for fun. And then they come inside and say, Dad, drive me to the store to get a Gatorade.
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LUDDEN: So in other words, we need some campaign to make bike riding cool?

DARLINGTON: Yeah, and that's what Safe Routes to School tries to do. Robert Ping, the Portland organizer for them, said that's exactly - that is his number one priority when they come into a community, is to try and - they try to stress the cool factor. They figure out what it is, what's going to make bicycling seem cool in this town.

"Kids on bikes are still made to feel like second-class citizens here," Olson observed. "Look at the size of the space in front of the school—it should have a sheltered bike-parking area. Instead the kids have to park by the road and walk back through three crossings of this busy entrance. They're made to feel as if they're in some suburban parking lot—which is exactly where they are. At really good schools, they would be welcomed—the principal would be out here, and there would be a system for counting how many days a kid has ridden, and a prize for the person who walks or bikes the most. But this school isn't doing that."