Why Cycle The School Run?
In this article, as part of my Cycling the School Run series, I look at the reasons why you might consider cycling the school run. It’s not all about saving the planet you know!
The article does assume that you are currently driving. I appreciate that other transport choices are available, but at my children’s school, driving is definitely the default for those who live more than about 10 minutes walk away.
What’s In It For Me?
I am a firm believer that few people change their habits for purely altruistic reasons. We need to see what’s in it for us in order to be fully invested in doing something. Especially if that thing is new. Especially if it seems like a big change.
There are very valid altruistic reasons why more people cycling the school run benefits society as a whole. If those reasons are enough to get you and your kids on your bikes then brilliant – you are a better person than I. But don’t knock self-interest – there are also some great reasons why cycling the school run might benefit you personally.
Society
It’s not all about saving the planet….but it’s hard to miss the point that riding a bike is a far more sustainable mode of transport than driving a car. I am not anti-car. I do own a car. Without my car I would struggle to take my children to visit their grandparents. But I am very much for reducing car use. There is a time and place for driving but for many of us, that needn’t be the school run.
These are some of the reasons to cycle which benefit our societies, locally and beyond. You know them already. They’re pretty obvious.
- Cleaner air: fewer cars, less pollution. I’m not sure any more needs to be said about that one. If your car is electric then great – but that electricity still has to come from somewhere…
- Less congestion: Lots of people trying to drive to the same place at the same time – like a school at school start and finish times – will always cause congestion. Congestion is never a good thing – it holds everyone up and increases pollution as people idle away in traffic jams. Ha ha! I hear some folk cry – but cyclists hold everyone up too – they’re just so slow! I suggest these folk time how long you they held up behind a bike for – I would be amazed if you get into minutes rather than seconds. My husband is fond of suggesting that we should hold a ‘drive to work day’ (post Covid obviously – nobody needs to drive to their own living room). On that day everyone who usually cycles should leave the bike at home and take the car. Perhaps that would get the point across that it really isn’t bikes which are slowing our roads down.
Safety around school: every child should have the right to travel safely to school and back. Yet the streets surrounding schools can be horribly dangerous places at drop off and pick up times. Not everyone who drives to school feels the need to drive right to the school gates of course. But ultimately, fewer cars anywhere near schools – and fewer cars on the routes to schools – increases safety. Safety is a massive issue for many parents when it comes to their children cycling to schools – as it should be. More on this later, but I think everyone can agree that the fewer cars there are on the roads, the safer it is to cycle. The massive uptake of cycling during lockdown was in part because people felt safer as the roads were quiet.- Lifelong habits: every parent wants their children to grow up healthy. Embedding active travel over short distances as a normal part of daily life sets children up for a lifetime of physical activity in a way that all those sports classes might not.
- Connected Communities: If you cycle the same route, at the same time, on the same days, you will meet some of the same people each time. In a car you would drive on by. On a bike you make eye contact, smile, wave, say hi. If we learn nothing else from 2020, surely we have learnt the importance of human connections.
Self-Interest
Personally, I started cycling the school run because of the parking issue and not through any driving desire to save the planet (although I really do believe in that too). Cycling solved the parking issue for me and that was why I cycled. Even now, on the days when the rain is lashing down and I’m tempted to take the car, just the thought of trying to park is enough to make me don my waterproofs and ride.
If you are a confident reverse parker then perhaps this is not an issue for you. Below are some of the other personal benefits I have found to cycling.
- Parking: parking anywhere near a school is usually a nightmare. Even when you do the responsible thing and park a few streets away from the actual school building, there are too many cars and not enough spaces. Circling the streets in heavy traffic, listening to Fun Kids on the radio and wondering if you’re going to be late is not the best start to the day.
- Distance: The distance from home to school is often the perfect distance for active travel. It’s not so far that your child is exhausted, but far enough for a good bit of exercise.
- Exercise: For us it is only 15 minutes to school – not all that much exercise. To be honest, I don’t worry too much about exercise and my kids because they seem incapable of sitting still (especially at meal times and bed time), but us adults are prone to sedentary lifestyles. During term time, in the morning I cycle to school, drop the children off, then cycle home. In the afternoon I cycle to school, pick them up, then cycle back. I do this 5 days a week. That’s five hours a week. The World Health Organisation guidelines recommend 150-300 minutes ‘moderate intensity aerobic physical activity’ per week for adults. That’s 2.5 to 5 hours a week. Job done. Small active journeys can really mount up.
- Time: It takes us 15 minutes to cycle between home and school. Give or take a minute perhaps. It always takes us 15 minutes and that is door to door. If I take the car, it takes somewhere between 10 minutes and forever, depending on the traffic and the parking. Sometimes cycling is quicker, sometimes it’s not. But on the bike I am always on time rather than very early or very late!
- Finance: I would like to think that one day we will get rid of the car completely. If I’m honest I suspect we won’t. So I will always pay for the MOT, insurance, and all the other money drains which come with car ownership. Cycling the school run only saves me the cost of the fuel for that one journey. But again, all those little journeys add up. Once I started cycling the school run, I then started cycling lots of other little journeys with my kids. To the zoo, to gym lessons, to swimming lessons. In the three years since we bought the electric cargo bike (which has a handy odometer) we have clocked up just over 5500 miles on it. I suspect that it quite a lot of fuel saved.
- Stress Relief: I’m not going to claim that cycling is always a lovely relaxing experience. It should be. Often it is. but then are other road users which sometimes detract from this. Sometimes merely being a person who rides a bike to school can inspire conversations which wreck your daily zen. It’s only when I find myself having to drive the school run that I realise how much less stressful cycling is.
Joy
Kids love cycling.
OK, maybe there are a few exceptions. But on the whole, kids love to cycle. This is based on no scientific study whatsoever. It is based on the looks on my children’s faces and other children’s faces, when they are allowed to cycle at whatever speed they want.
Kids are completely oblivious to the majority of the reasons / excuses adults have for not cycling. Especially the weather one. Give a child a puddle and they will go right through the middle of it – on foot, on a bike, in wellies, in shorts – they just don’t care.
It’s a vague memory now, but I do remember riding my bike for the first time without stabilisers. I remember being so proud of myself (especially since I’d managed it before my brother). I remember loving the sense of freedom.
Occasionally as an adult I still find that feeling of joy which cycling inspires in children. For me, it tends to involve riding down hills.
The trouble is that we give our children bikes, we hand them that joy, but then we shout after them to slow down because we’re walking and can’t keep up. We tell them ‘not today’ because it’s easier to go by car. We tell them to stop, to slow down, to come back. We take all that joy away. If you can develop the confidence to cycle with your children, and practise it every day on the school run, then you get to share the joy.
What Are You Waiting For?
Convinced yet?
If not, or you just want to read more, I would highly recommend ‘Cycle Nation’ by Peter Walker. All the proof you could want – from a proper grown-up journalist – of the benefits of cycling.
Actually, I have found it’s not words which convince people, it’s experience. To really understand the benefits of cycling the school run, you need to cycle the school run. To do that you’re going to need a bike (or several bikes) of some kind. You might need to think through all the reasons NOT to cycle which you are bound to come up with because change is scary (I know these because I still come up with them some days when I’m just not in the mood). You also need to think through the practicalities of cycling to and from school.
Read on…or just get that bike out!
Cycling The School Run Articles
This series of articles are based on a talk I gave in August 2020 for Greener Kirkcaldy. If listening is your thing, you can access the recording here.
The articles follow a kind of order as shown below, but can also be read in isolation. If you have questions or comments I would love to hear them and will follow them up with further articles if I can.
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[…] bike carrying two children – walking anywhere takes ages. When I cycle the kids to school, it takes 15 minutes. The same route on foot takes nearer 40 […]