On Wednesday morning, a group of about 40 students at City Garden Montessori School did something that’s done all too seldom in St. Louis: They biked to school.
The “bike bus” organized by the nonprofit St. Louis BWorks is part of a nascent global effort to explore a fun alternative to school buses (which have been unreliable in the St. Louis area, to say the least). By joining up a dozen-plus youth in a people-powered alternative, bike buses make the road safer for young riders and offer camaraderie and exercise, too. After assisting for years with the ones organized by the Soulard School, BWorks this spring has begun organizing its own—and hopes to create a model making it easier for schools to create their own, says program director Evie Hemphill.
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“The hope is that this is a kind of experiential education for how to be safe on the streets,” she says.
Funding from the national organization Safe Routes to School will allow BWorks to bring bike busses to six different locations this year, Hemphill says, beginning with SLPS’ Betty Wheeler Classical Junior Academy last month. Wednesday was the first of three round-trip bike buses on three consecutive Wednesdays for City Garden. Interested pupils meet in Tower Grove Park for a 7:30 a.m. departure, and then ride back to the park as a pack at the end of the day.
And there are a lot of interested pupils. City Garden teacher Jean Turney circulated among the students as they arrived beginning around 7:15 a.m. this past Wednesday. The asphalt drive where they congregated had the nervous excitement of the first day of school, or a field trip.
Eight-year-old Frank Hunter was so into the bike bus idea that he went to bed early last night, his mom, Brandi, reported. “And then he woke up earlier than he’d ever done, bright-eyed and ready to go!”
“I haven’t ridden my bike in a long time,” Frank said. He demonstrated his bike horn, which instead of a bell, burps, clucks, and even farts.
Kim Jordan, the mother of two young participants, made a similar report about her kindergartner, Ronald. “Ronnie never wakes up on time,” Jordan said. “He jumped up and woke everyone up!”
Asked if the siblings have ever biked to school before, 9-year-old Kinley answered: “No, but sometimes my mom drops me off, and I walk halfway.”
Kim Jordan said she was eager for Kinley to get to ride to school. “But with my younger one, I’m nervous. Just a little,” she said.
And that’s part of the reasoning behind a bike bus, says Hemphill, of BWorks. Parents may like the idea of their children biking to school, in theory. But with streets—and drivers—that often seem hostile to cyclists, the idea of sending kids off on their own can be terrifying. Bike buses not only show students a physical route they could take to school, but show them just how possible a bike commute can be.
On Wednesday, some parents drove their kids to Tower Grove Park for the dropoff, unloading bikes from their trunks. But City Garden’s bike bus also offers a more intriguing possibility: As the youthful clump of cyclists made its way down Thurman to City Garden, it grew. Some kids waited at intersections along the way, then got “picked up” by the bike buses, just like their big yellow predecessors.
They all arrived at school just a little over a mile later, flushed with happiness and pride. This time, Frank Hunter deployed the clucking sound on his bike bell as City Garden CEO Christie Huck greeted the cyclists.
The bike bus was no small effort. Along with providing countless hours of organization, instructions, and waivers for participants, BWorks even organizes sessions where kids can get their bikes tuned up and ready to go in advance of the journey. More than a dozen volunteers signed on, both to lead the ride and serve as its caboose. The trip resembled the kind of careless car-free commute to school enjoyed by Gen X-ers in the days of yore only in the actual pedaling. A lot of work went into making it, well, work.
Patrick Van Der Tuin, BWorks executive director, hopes his organization can turn its labor into a playbook. “There is an incredible amount of interest from other schools, either the administration or families who are just seeing our videos or our pictures for these six schools,” he says. “What I’m trying to do is encourage Evie to basically document what we’re learning and create formats that we can help spread throughout the community. Because we’re only so big, and we can only support so much.”
But each bike bus has the potential to grow a movement. At City Garden, for example, if these next three weeks are a success, participants might be tempted to do it again—whether with a school-organized group or even just a few friends.
“The hope is that they’ll continue on with it,” says Van Der Tuin.
Perhaps because of all of that planning, the morning was indeed a success. Perhaps intimidated by the mass of 60 cyclists making their way down the street, even the city’s often reckless motorists behaved themselves. Upon arrival at the school, a reporter asked a group of volunteers if they witnessed any trouble. Parent Jake Hafner offered the good, if somewhat surprising for St. Louis, news.
“Not even a horn honk,” he says.
