Thursday, April 18, 2013

Guardian Bike Blog on Children Biking to School

We found a short piece on children biking to school in the UK on the always interesting Guardian Bike Blog. The author asks why parents won't ride with their children to school, but he hasn't yet got any personal experience riding with his children  on their own bikes to school.

The post notes that the parents surveyed wish for separated infrastructure that would allow their children to use their bikes for transportation, but the cycling advocates quoted argue that these parents just need to get used to using the streets as they are. The parents, including one who rides her child on a cargo bike, argue that the roads are not safe enough for school age children to ride alone, but the more vocal cyclists fail to see the same dangers.

My question is: when will planners and advocates stop asking parents to love the roads and safety odds we currently live with, both here and in the UK, and just start building those separated non-car permeable lanes that we need to get our kids safely to school and back? How can we get more parents to allow their kids to ride to school? Build the safe infrastructure for them to be able to do it, that's how.

Why must "advocates" tell other parents they don't know what they need?

Check out the post on the Guardian's blog from the link and see what you think.

10 comments:

  1. PREACH.

    Thank you for your thoughtful reaction. I feel the same. haven't we been trying to adjust people's "attitudes" about biking with this ill-suited infrastructure for long enough? Maybe we should start using the obvious evidence that better infrastructure will lead to changed behavior faster than any information or education campaign.

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  3. Thank you so much for your comments. I agree wholeheartedly that better infrastructure is the key to unlocking the puzzle of how to grow ridership at every age level.

    Karen, you are the important demographic that planners and cycling advocates speak about reaching in Chicago. What a frustrating double bind to feel intimidated by both stronger cyclists and non riders judging you for taking the chance to ride.
    I found it interesting that the mom in the piece quoted that rides a cargo bike is still not confident about her child riding independently. Despite her experience using a bike that carries children for transportation her comments kind of go ignored by the author and the advocate quoted at the end. I can't see us ever growing family riders simply by saying telling families they must just get braver in traffic.


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  4. Indeed.

    I commented on the Guardian article after it was published to point out that the answers to the questions it posed were already there in the article, mainly in the quotes from parents.

    Unfortunately the writer didn't seem to have noticed and continued waffling on about attitudes.

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    1. It really isn't our favorite article, but the blog in general frequently offers intriguing or informational posts. Why is it that people cannot listen to parents when they are considering infrastructure changes? For whom are planners building the infrastructure in the first place?

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  5. In the UK, we have encouraged parents to let kids cycle for years and they are still not cycling - yes, time rearrange the streets around people and not cars.

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  6. I agree with my friend Mr Ranty. Years and years Local Councils and cycling bodies telling us that we need more training. There is no amount of training in the world that will make me think that my 8 year old is ok to share a road with a 40mph HGV.

    Most children where I live receive cycle training at age 10. Yet a tiny percentage continue to cycle. Training is not the answer.

    http://mancbikemummy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/get-your-hands-off-our-cyclepath.html

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  7. Loved reading the linked post. We'll have to read more! And you're both right, of course.

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    1. Thank you. I was a bit ranty myself at the time of writing....oops. I must try and be calmer and more level headed

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  8. When I was a child - I also used to biking to school. I really enjoyed it.

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