Filed under: Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/better-streets-for-birmingham/id1867451510?i=1000756652968
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6hxqxrtM8h53YdRrKB4JvF?si=fmsx1W0GQhWg9AXYAv-NoQ
Host Kevin Carmody talks with Kate from Bike Worcester and Hilary from Bike Birmingham about the most fun way to start the school day: Bike Buses.
We explore the concept, the experience and the impact it can have, both on the kids riding and on wider society.
https://www.bikeworcester.org.uk
https://www.bikebirmingham.org.uk/
Kevin Carmody (00:05)
Hello and welcome again to another Better Streets for Birmingham podcast where this week we are talking about bike buses. Today I’m joined by Kate from Bike Worcester and Hilary from Bike Birmingham. Both thank you very much for joining me today.
Kate C (00:19)
Always happy to chat about buses.
Hilary T (00:22)
Yeah,
Kevin Carmody (00:22)
I’m wondering if I could get one of you to give us a quick overview of what a bike bus is. Can I go Kate first? What was the bike bus?
Kate C (00:31)
So a bike bus is a group of families who choose to travel to school together by bike. Much like a bus route, it often has stops along the way. So you have a starting point and then a route where you pick up other families on bikes. Then you arrive at school all together.
Kevin Carmody (00:49)
And ⁓ in Worcester, you have how many bike buses going?
Kate C (00:54)
⁓ I think I’ve lost count now. We’ve definitely managed to get into over half the primary schools in whole of Worcester City. I think at last count we had something like 18 routes running over the week across Worcester, with some coming out into Perthshire and just beyond Malvern as well. So yeah, we’ve lost count in the four years since we started, but we’ve got quite a few going on.
Kevin Carmody (01:22)
Okay, so over four years, that’s fabulous. So we’ve started, I think more recently in Birmingham. So Hilary, you run a bike bus, how long has that been going for?
Hilary Topp (01:33)
It’s been going for two and a half years. ⁓
Kevin Carmody (01:36)
and half years.
And how many people do you get on average on a bike bus?
Hilary Topp (01:43)
I don’t know about the average, but anything from on a really cold rainy day, I think one time we had sort of three, up to I think we’ve had 20 something on a summer day. Yeah. Or when it was bling your bike week, when they all had tinsel wrapped around it and shiny things. And that encouraged a few more families to join us. think about 24, 25 is probably our maximum.
Kevin Carmody (02:08)
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, what would you say? What’s it? What’s it if you were to go on a bike bus? If you’re a parent going on a bike bus or a child, what’s what’s the experience like? Okay.
Kate C (02:20)
Oh yeah, I’ll go for that. What’s the experience like? For what should be a really normal part of the school day. So know that sort of the school run, which I think many parents look at with a fair amount of, I don’t know, drudgery or dread. You know, you’ve to drag your kids to school, you’ve got to remember everything you need to remember. That one day a week where it’s Bike Bus Day, I like to think it’s like a little glimmer of a slightly different school run. So…
When you’re on a bike bus, met with other people on bikes. You’ve always got, children are so good at bringing energy right from first thing in the morning, as you’ll know. So you’ve got children on their bikes, children are excited. You’ve got chatting. We usually have a bit of music on our bikes. In the summer, we might have bubbles. So the bike bus experience is kind of flipping that school run drudgery on its head and
Kevin Carmody (03:00)
Yeah.
Kate C (03:17)
bringing like a bit of fun and bit of chatting and bit of joy to your journey to school.
Kevin Carmody (03:23)
Hilary, I think you just added music to yours recently as well, didn’t you?
Hilary Topp (03:26)
Yeah,
I’ve got a big speaker ⁓ and that’s been really fun. We have had music for a while, but from a smaller speaker. So we’ve got a slightly bigger one now. yeah, Bike Bus experience. I started, I had the idea of starting this Bike Bus when I heard about one on the radio and it was the sound of all the bike bells and the kids being really excited and I thought, wow, that’s amazing. I’d love to be on one of those.
Kevin Carmody (03:29)
Yeah.
Hilary Topp (03:51)
So that’s why we started the one to our school. ⁓ And yeah, I think the kids really enjoy it and it’s lovely seeing them chatting to their friends and cycling along. It’s a kind of slightly safer way of cycling on the roads, especially for kids. We’ve got quite a few kids who hadn’t cycled on the road before. They’ve always just cycled along the pavements with their parents running behind that kind of thing. ⁓ So it’s really nice to give them that experience in a slightly safer way. ⁓
Yeah, and they chat to their friends, they arrive to school really excited and energized. ⁓ We have stickers, thanks Bike Worcester and another bike bus up north as well has sent us a few rolls of stickers that they had spare. So we’ve got about six or seven different sticker designs and give those out as well. So most of their bike helmets are covered in bike bus stickers as well. Yeah, it’s just really good fun.
Kevin Carmody (04:45)
that’s a really key point on safety. know, a lot of parents I imagine are quite concerned about their children going out riding on roads. mean, what sort of measures do you ⁓ do you take? So I’m going to Kate, I know you’ve been setting up a few bike buses with different schools. Do you I mean, is this something that you get feedback from from parents? Are they worried about the safety? And do you do you have any particular measures that you put in place to you ask them to?
Kate C (05:11)
I think it’s the number one reason why our families are not already cycling to school with their children, is that they don’t feel safe enough. And that’s the whole reason that we’ve expanded the bike bus across Worcester, is that if there’s a family who could cycle, we want to kind of set up the framework that means that they can cycle, even if that is just one day a week. So our measures, I mean, the bike bus…
Kevin Carmody (05:20)
Yeah.
Kate C (05:40)
Formation is the thing that gives us our safety. It’s that safety in numbers. We do have bike Worcester ⁓ high vizes, so you know if it’s a bike Worcester person because we’ve got our bike bus high vizes. We’re very recognizable in that sense. We do a lot of work with our community leaders with building their confidence for leading these bike rides as well. We offer bikeability training.
to all the adults that take part should they wish to take that up. We’re really good at communicating with our local police and safe neighbourhood teams and our local counsellors. So a lot of the safety measures is actually just about building the awareness that we’re going to be there and we’re going to be travelling and we’re going to be visible and so make space for us.
Kevin Carmody (06:31)
Yeah, yeah. I think it’s important to remember as well. These are this is a family ride, isn’t it? So the parents are there with their kids. They’re not dropping off their kids with you to know.
Kate C (06:39)
No.
Yeah, it’s everybody together. So for me, I’m really passionate about children’s independent mobility as they grow older. But actually a lot of it is about empowering the parents and the caregivers. And for me, especially women who still, even though we do have male caregivers on the school run, still the majority of our caregivers we’re seeing on the school run are women. And so it’s about empowering women and making sure they feel safe and confident to do this.
And that’s a lot of our community building is about doing that as well.
Kevin Carmody (07:13)
Yeah, yeah. And it’s the tool kits as well that we use to develop a bike bus. I mean, I Hilary, you’ve been working on tool kits recently, things like route planning and there are tools in place, aren’t there, to make this as safe as possible for the children.
Hilary Topp (07:28)
Yeah, there’s a lot of ⁓ help and advice out there. ⁓ So when we set ours up, me and my son sat on the sofa and worked our way through the what was Sustrans and now Walk Wheel Cycle Trust ⁓ resource pack about how to set up a bike bus. And we created a WhatsApp community, which I’ve not done before. ⁓ We looked through the stuff about how to plan it, how to kind of have people at the back and the front and the sides, how to
talked to the school about it ⁓ and you know we were lucky that our school was really supportive. It’s definitely a parent initiative, they’re happy to promote it but they’re really clear it’s not their thing, it’s the parents and carers who want to run it. ⁓ So yeah we use that and there’s some really good resources now from Bikeability which I think Bike Worcester was involved in putting together as well and we’ve had some good support from Hamish who works for the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust with particularly around risk assessments.
joined us for one of our bike buses and kind of did a dynamic risk assessment where you do it on the go and then gave us some feedback like things we could do it a little bit better. So that was really helpful. But yeah, there’s loads of stuff. So on Friday’s bike bus project for the Walk Wheel or Cycle Trust and Bikeability Bike Bus Resources and you can download all of those off the internet.
Kevin Carmody (08:49)
So what effects would we say there are beyond the bike bus itself? mean, have you noticed any impact outside of, you know, that sort of half an hour ride that kids are experiencing?
Kate C (09:05)
Yeah, 100%. So we see, so it’s not just in our schools that we work in, we find that it’s not just our children who take part in the bike bus. Just building that presence of bikes actually in the bike racks and people cycling has increased the rates of cycling for children on non-bike bus days and children who can’t take part in the bike bus. We see more children kind of going, actually, yeah, can ride my bike.
Kevin Carmody (09:30)
Yeah.
Kate C (09:35)
again, it’s parents and caregivers seeing, ⁓ seeing mums who have done the bite bus and then seeing them cycle to work and they’ve never done that before, but they’ve gone, actually, I can, I can do it. And I have worked out how to use a pannier or, you know, carry my stuff. And so I’m going to do the bite bus and I want to zip down to work. And that is exactly the impact we want to have making people go, yeah, it’s completely possible to do this. And
I know how to move myself around and try to make myself feel safe. So those are the sorts of impacts we have, these sorts of, you know, the people increasing their rates of cycling and it just feeling a little bit more possible. You’ve got to sort of, you know, see the change that you want to happen before it can happen as well. And I also have tiny little glimmers of optimism. So like, cycle my children to school every day and
I just really hope that some of those little girls that see me on the school run, they kind of capture that memory. And when they are mothers, potentially on their school runs, that is seen as an option for them to do because it’s…
a reality they’ve witnessed, ⁓ rather than falling into the cycle of the school run means getting in the car and doing this. So those are my little hopes as well.
Kevin Carmody (10:52)
Yeah, yeah, I can imagine really, I mean, it’s giving those kids a different view on the way down. But it’s it also I think provides a a nice vision of the school being an active and engaged place. And we certainly noticed that,
when we arrive with our music playing at the school en masse, you can see it affects everyone else around as well when we arrive, it really is quite a wonderful effect.
Kate C (11:21)
Yeah, I had a beautiful moment on the gate this morning. Thursday’s not our Bike Bus Day, tomorrow is our Bike Bus Day, but I saw one of our Year 3 children who does do Bike Bus and they were being quite reluctant to go into school and, you know, really struggling with that transition. And their mum spotted me and went, ⁓ Kate’s here, tomorrow’s Bike Bus Day. ⁓ I think it’s the Friday you’re going to get your 10 Bike Bus certificate for the year. Does that sound good?
She was like, yes, great. And so her mom was like, well, off you go then, it’s school and tomorrow Kate’s gonna give you your certificate. So it’s all these like tiny little relationship building things that kind of supporting children’s journey in their school.
Kevin Carmody (12:04)
great. I didn’t realize you did like a reward system as well. That sounds yeah, that sounds positive.
Kate C (12:08)
Well, this year we started,
we call it the pedal passport because we have so many brilliant children that take part across the year. So we have a little pedal passport and it has space for each week and get a little sticker. So when you get to five bike buses in the year, you might get another extra certificate and 10, 15. It’s just a really beautiful way to kind of mark either those children that are kind of there every week, but also
Lots of families can’t do it every week, but it’s still a really great aim to say across the school year we’re going to try and do five and they’ve got like a record of that as well. So yeah, we’re pleased with the pedal passports this year. It’s been fun.
Kevin Carmody (12:48)
Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s fabulous idea. That’s really good. So if you were going to start a bike bus, if you wanted one for your school, how would you go about it? Who would like to take this? Please Hilary.
Hilary Topp (13:01)
take that. So
well I can tell you what we did which was to find some other parents who were interested. ⁓ Even well even one other family is enough ⁓ and just cycle together ⁓ and then we decided on a route that we thought would work that wasn’t too steep or difficult or too far for small people cycling. We’ve had sort of three-year-olds on the bike bus so pedaling.
themselves so we didn’t want it to be too difficult. As I said we used all the resources that are out there, some really really helpful resources. In the Bikeability resources there’s a template letter you can send to the school so you could use that to encourage the school to get on board and at least help promote the bike bus and tell the children about it, tell the parents about it, put something in the newsletter, we made a poster with the route with the timings on and put that in the school newsletter.
⁓ And we did a practice run before the summer holidays with just, I think three families who were kind of helping to organize it, checks the route, checked that we knew what we were doing and then it launched properly in the September. ⁓ And I think like the way it’s been inspiring watching Bike Worcester and how they’ve done it, because what they’ve been able to do is kind of support, like if you’ve got one family who wants to do it, they’ve got people who can ride with them. They’ve got some
like in-person support, which has been really good, is partly why we’ve set up Bike Birmingham slightly, same sort of model. ⁓ So there might be organisations or communities or people nearby who can support you as well, maybe local cycling communities and clubs who could, you know, maybe ride the route with you and check what you’re doing. And there’s also, as I say, there’s support from the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust. yeah, so reach out and get some support ⁓ if you need that.
⁓ And I would say it’s always just worth doing that because it gives you bit more confidence in what you’re doing.
Kevin Carmody (15:06)
Yeah, I mean, Kate, by 18, you must have a pretty standard format of getting these started now.
Kate C (15:12)
I think our key is ⁓ just go for it, like all the things Hilary said, but also just do it. You’ve got the idea, go for it. And I think one of the things, the reason that we’ve gone so far is that some of our bike buses, it took a long time for them to take and embed. So the key really is.
You start and you show up every week. And even if it’s just you and your children, you’re there every single week and you relentlessly go for it because human beings are naturally, you know, we’re really, really scared of different things and we don’t want to be the outliers. And we found ourselves and in the BikeLister community, a bunch of people who are happy to be the outliers. I’m happy to be the bike weirdo, like in all places and show up and do that.
And that’s what we had to do in a lot of places, to be like, we’re not going away, we’re still here. This is safe. This isn’t going away. You can join in. We’ll look after you. And just, keep going. Like we don’t give up just because nobody appears to be turning up. We go and we go and we go and we go. And some of our bike buses, it took six months before we got, you know, before we got growth and then boom, it was there. So I think there’s something, there’s so much about community building as well that, you know,
showing people that you’re always going to be there and you’re going to turn up and kind of waiting for the right moment for others to join you. And yeah, always just go for it. Trying to help your family cycle to school safely is not the wrong thing to do. So if anybody comes at you with opinions about that not being the thing to be done, absolutely not. Children and families have the right to feel safe cycling to school in that way. So go for it.
Kevin Carmody (16:58)
yeah, support networks, consistency. really matters probably so much more than how
well, you’ve planned the route, can be, you know, it can be adjusted. You know, those sorts of things can be improved upon.
Kate C (17:14)
so many times. We’re constantly every single week adjusting and evaluating and going does this work or does this work or this family can actually come from this place so let’s modify. Always willing to be adaptable in that way ⁓ really helps.
Kevin Carmody (17:29)
Yeah, so you’re saying you’ve built some quite good relationships with ⁓ the local ⁓ councillors and you’ve been talking to the police. I mean, do you you feel like the bike buses can be more than just that small action in the mornings? mean, can it can they can they affect politically?
I will go to you Kate.
Kate C (17:55)
It’s really hard, isn’t it? That is ultimately our aim, is that we have, ⁓ in Worcestershire, we quite frankly have terrible cycling infrastructure. We’ve, over the last 10, 15, 20 years, lacked any political will to make any improvements to walking, wheeling, cycling. So we’re facing quite a dire political landscape.
Kevin Carmody (17:57)
Yeah.
Kate C (18:24)
what is excellent about bike buses, it’s quite hard to argue with. It’s quite hard to argue with the idea that children should be able to cycle to school, especially if you, you know, if we’ve got the backdrop of children’s physical and mental health being at pretty much a crisis point in this country, frankly, with activity levels ⁓ and children’s wellbeing against also, you know, ⁓ a climate.
backdrop as well. It’s really hard to say we shouldn’t be doing things to get children on bikes. So even in Worcestershire, where we’ve at times had some opposition to cyclists, even the Bike Bus then is such a positive message to share that maybe we’re making tiny inroads, glimmers of positivity.
Kevin Carmody (19:14)
Yeah, I think I mean, Hilary, I think in Birmingham, we have had support in developing bike Birmingham and, you know, the councillors do want to help. I’m sure it’s Yeah, I mean, can you talk to some effects about the kind of Birmingham’s for example, Safe Streets to Schools programs that they’re developing at the moment?
Hilary Topp (19:37)
Yeah, so one of the, it’s kind of happened because of the bike bus, which is that some of the same people involved in the bike bus then have supported the school to apply for a school street. So we have the road outside the school shut morning and afternoon. It’s also most of the same people on the bike bus also helping with stewarding the school street. So it creates a bit of a problem in terms of like managing our time, but it’s been a positive thing overall. And it’s
also kind of put us in touch with the local council and finding out a bit more about the kind of active travel work that they’re trying to promote active travel. We’re lucky in Birmingham in a way because we have the Clean Air Zone, so there’s Clean Air Zone funding that’s ring-fenced for active travel. Some of it, it’s not a lot, but it is better than nothing. So there are things that are happening and I think, I feel like with the bike bus, for me it’s just showing how things could be.
⁓ just doing it and telling people about it and supporting some more of them to start. I think they’re fun in themselves and a good thing and maybe it’ll make a difference because people will see how it could be and what should be possible without there needing to be a bike bus. Like these kids and families should be able to cycle to school, not on a bike bus and feel safe to do that. So, yeah, it’s been a really positive thing.
Kevin Carmody (21:03)
to kind of try and ⁓
Hilary Topp (21:04)
Yeah, I’ve always thought that
changing the world should be fun and this is about as fun as it gets. I think it’s brilliant.
Kevin Carmody (21:08)
Yeah.
Yeah, I love Friday mornings, you know, it’s such a great way to start a day Okay. Well, Hilary, Kate, thank you both very much for taking the time to chat about bike buses with me. ⁓ it’s just yeah, I say Always always great to chat about them ⁓ and then yeah, thank you everyone for watching better streets podcast. Make sure you check out better streets for birmingham.org
Hilary Topp (21:23)
You’re very welcome.
Kevin Carmody (21:34)
Also, look out for Bike Birmingham. Hilary, what’s the address on that? Do remember?
Hilary Topp (21:39)
Yeah,
it’s bikebirmingham.org.uk and we’re also on Instagram and Facebook.
Kevin Carmody (21:46)
And where can we find out more about bike Worcester?
Kate C (21:50)
We are bikeworcester.org.uk And you can find us on ⁓ Facebook and Instagram and occasionally on TikTok as well. So look us up. We love to make more friends.
Kevin Carmody (22:03)
Thank you both very much for your time.