Shawlands Bike Bus

Ziele/Ideen

Shawlands Bike Bus wants to encourage even more children and families to cycle and scoot to school by removing some of the barriers to participation.

Despite the Bike Bus growing very successfully, we recognise it has not been representative of the school demographics. Thus we want to reach the underrepresented groups. Research has shown that concerns about “necessary” equipment are a well established impediment.
We have consulted the school, as well as discussing within the Parent Council and Bike Bus. We have also had face to face feedback from parents as well as other feedback via social media, who have told us they’d like to take part by haven’t as yet. From this we know that there is demand from families to cycle to school, including from those who don’t currently own a bike.

Families can also worry about secure storage for bikes, thus we targeted action on this too,

Kurzbeschreibung

Shawlands Bike Bus is a cooperative organisation, established in October 2021 in order to provide a healthy, safe environment for children to cycle and scoot to Shawlands Primary School. In this time, we have grown substantially from five families to approaching 100 weekly participants in under a year and have assisted other bike buses with setting up and operating across Glasgow. It is an important initiative promoting health and wellbeing, improving relationships between families and showcasing sustainable travel.

Resultate

As stated above, the Bike Bus has grown in 18 months from five families to approaching 100 participants weekly. The family cycling sessions are ongoing. However feedback has been positive and we gained significant further interest in cycling, and in the Bike Bus itself, when promoting the initiative at parents evenings at the school.

The headteacher tells us that parents are now chosing the school specifically because of the Bike Bus.

We have inspired at least eight other bike buses directly. We have given talks and presentations to many influential fora, including Glasgow City Council, the Scottish Education Expo, UCI World Championships preparation meetings, University of Westminster. And we were an integral part of the inaugural Global Bike Bus Summit in March 2023
media coverage via the BBC (TV and radio), Guardian, New York Times
We won a Glasgow Wide Community Award, and inspired £30k/yr for bike and walking buses and outdoor learning by Glasgow City Council.

Partner

Women On Wheels: family cycling lessons

Glasgow City Council: for logistical and political support

Police Scotland: for logistical support