Zivarts: How bike buses can leave some students behind

Editor's note: This is an op-ed by Anna Zivarts, a visually impaired Seattle parent who is a co-leader of the Transportation and Environment subcommittee for Mayor Katie Wilson's transition team and author of the book When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency.

From a 2013 Bike to School Day video by Seattle Bike Blog.

Recently, I was talking with a family member about her experience in elementary school in Milwaukee in the 1960's. She remembers how all the kids went home for lunch, with the expectation that there would be a homemaker waiting in the kitchen to feed them. Of course, there were many families that didn't work for, and she recalled that eventually the school opened up a room where students who couldn't go home could sit and eat a sack lunch.

This conversation stuck with me because I've been wrestling with how I feel about the bike bus movement. And what struck me about the conversation with my family member was how the assumptions we make about families in the context of bike bus can feel similarly outdated.

First off, in critiquing the bike bus, I'm starting with the assumption that we are all working in our own ways to build communities where driving isn't the only option for getting around. I know that none of us set out wanting or intending to exclude people. But I've also seen how too often in our stratified communities - segregated by access to wealth, by race, immigration status and language access - it's too easy to assume that the world we encounter reflects the experiences (and access needs) of others.

At the root of my work in the nondrivers community, the key message that I share with bike advocates (who often have the choice to afford cars and to be able to drive, but prefer to have other options) is that in order to win broader public support, we need to understand and prioritize solutions that address the priorities of people in our community who have the least mobility freedom. And that's where I think bike buses too often miss the mark. I don't think it serves bike advocacy broadly to create opportunities linked to public schools that exclude some kids.

Yes, there are many people who bike because they can't afford to drive, and there are definitely some of us who bike because we can't get a license. If we expand the definition of biking, there are many young people who are using e-scooters because they don't have, and likely can't afford, cars. But bike advocacy has a problem, because the reality is that recreational biking in the US is seen as a privilege. Many people live in apartments without safe or secure bike storage, on streets with no safe biking infrastructure, and don't have access to a car (or the leisure time) to be able drive somewhere with their bike to ride in a comfortable and safe environment.

Because of who has the luxury to bike in the US, it's easy for opponents of bike infrastructure to argue that it's not something that's wanted or needed by low income communities or communities of color. And when we champion activities that exclude kids and families with less flexible time, less resources, and perhaps less connection to biking already, we perpetuate that narrative. I think that's not only morally unjust, it's also not strategic from the perspective of moving our communities away from car-dependency.

The moral part of this feels particularly tricky because bike buses are a form of transportation to public schools - a rare public space that is supposed to bring families together despite our differences in resources, in cultures, in the length of time we've lived in a community - to create opportunities for every kid.

I know many bike buses, like the one I was involved with in Seattle, are trying to address barriers to participation. For example, our bike bus managed to coordinate with a nonprofit to provide loaner bikes during the morning school commute for elementary school-aged kids to borrow. When that program ended, we gathered and repaired donated bikes to give away through the social workers at the schools who knew which kids needed them. Unfortunately, that didn't translate to families being able to work out the logistics to join. Once the loaner bike pilot ended, the kids that remained in the bike bus all had biking parents.

I continued to have conversations with local nonprofits and city and school safe routes staff about what it would take to make the bike bus more inclusive. At one point I started looking into setting up an e-bike library for parents and caregivers, but as I continued to think through the barriers to participation, I worried that wouldn't be enough. For one, with an e-bike library, secure storage, especially for heavier family bikes, would be an issue for many families.

Another major barrier remains ensuring that families who can't take their kid to school biking or walking have a trusted adult they can delegate this task to (this may be less necessary for older kids, but for most kids in elementary school, it's probably necessary). In our bike bus, one of the kids on our block was only able to participate because he was good friends with my kid and his grandparents, who he lived with, trusted that I could make sure he got to school safely on the back of our cargo bike. But if we hadn't been neighbors, this kid, despite desperately wanting to bike bus, wouldn't have been able to participate.

Because of the stratification of our neighborhoods and our schools, it's too easy to only notice more resourced families and to not fully consider how the bike bus requires layers of flexibility and access that just aren't available to so many families.

If you live in a community with a neighborhood school, where most families have a garage full of bikes and a parent who can do drop off and pick up, that's lovely. Maybe bike buses can work for your community. But that's not the reality for so many families. What message does it send if we exclude kids who don't come from families who happen not to have time, the bikes, or the ability to bike?

I realize this critique will receive backlash. I'd initially included these thoughts in a piece I wrote last year for Romper but had decided to cut the bike bus critique from the piece because I knew it would distract from what I wanted to convey (how school transportation is a microcosm of the problems created by car dependency). But now a year later, I've come to realize that my critique of bike bus is something that I think is worth sharing because I think it helps us answer the fundamental question that we are all trying to solve: How can we as people who want to see less car-dependent communities make an impact? If our goal is less car-dependent communities where no one gets left behind, what could we do instead?

First off, credit to the many bike bus organizers are wrestling with this question and are trying interventions - like creating walking buses where bike access isn't a factor, or are paying stipends to bike or walking leaders to build access in communities where parents might not have the flexibility to volunteer or to chaperone their own kids.

There are also bike programs that are built to meet the needs of the kids who don't have caregivers with lots of flexibility. For example, in the same Title I* school that my kid attended in South Seattle, Bike Works offers a bike afterschool program for middle school kids. By working with slightly older kids, they're able to connect with kids without needing to have a caregiver present.

I also recognize that many people will point out that school sports or other after-school activities similarly exclude families with fewer resources and less transportation flexibility. This is true. But it doesn't mean it's what we should aspire to, and I continue to believe that different from after school activities, there's something inherent about the act of getting to public school that feels like it shouldn't leave people out.

When there are so many ways for our communities to be fractured, divided, and segregated, public school is one of the few places that bridges these divides. And as a movement that wants it to be possible for everyone to bike, walk, roll and bus safely, let's make sure we are living up to our values of inclusion.

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*Title I schools are eligible to receive supplemental federal funding because they serve a high percentage of low-income students, usually defined by having a high percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced price school lunch.