Call it Critical Mass for kids going to school.
Every Wednesday for the last three school years, a caravan of about a dozen cyclists in green vests helps kids ride in the bike lane on Bergen Street from East New York to Downtown Brooklyn. The adults provide a safeguard between vehicles and the kids in the bike lane, who are headed to school in the vicinity of the roughly 4-mile route.
“It’s even dangerous sometimes for adults on bikes. A lot of aggressive driving and to have a kind of a buffer of bikers around the kids is really nice and helps them feel like they’re safe,” volunteer Alex Goulet, 37, said as he prepared for the inaugural ride of the new school year’s Bergen bike bus.
He added, “You see the look on their faces. It’s just pure joy riding the bikes to school.”
One of the first families to join the bike bus last Wednesday was Tamika Charles-Sims, 48, and her 8-year old daughter Sterling, who cruised into the crowd of about a dozen cyclists in Crown Heights.
The Bergen bike bus has been escorting kids on bikes to school for three years.
Stephen Nessen
As Sterling navigated potholes and double-parked cars on a road slippery from rain, adult cyclists formed a perimeter around her.
While focusing on the ride, Sterling confirmed biking is better than walking or taking the bus to school.
“ It’s such a New York thing to bike on the street,” Charles-Sims said as she trailed her daughter on her own bike. “So I wanted her to get her started early.”
The bike bus is free. A website features a tracker that allows parents to time when to join in. Organizers said they were inspired by similar bike programs in Portland and Barcelona.
The weekly trip represents a grassroots response to the danger on the roads: Public data from Crash Mapper shows more than 40 cyclists have been injured on that stretch of Bergen Street in the last five years.
Unlike a Critical Mass ride, where cyclists ride in a large group and block traffic in an assertive message to drivers about sharing the streets, the Bergen bike bus mostly sticks to the bike lane. Both gatherings do rely on marshals who stop at intersections to make sure kids cross safely and prevent vehicles from turning into bikers.
Organizer Hilda Cohen said it’s all about making the bike lane extra safe for kids.
The adult cyclists act as a human buffer as they escort kids to school each Wednesday. Data shows there have been more than 40 cyclists injured on Bergen Street in the last five years.
Stephen Nessen
“As someone who bikes all over, you can have just one brush with [a vehicle] that doesn’t go well and you just kind of want give it up and say, ‘is it worth it?’ And kids shouldn’t have to deal with that. It just should be fun,” Cohen said.
Cyclist Erin Chen, 6, got that message. She had taken the Bergen bike bus to school for three years.
“You can like get all the sillies out and stuff when you’re biking before school,” she said.
Even as the skies opened and it began pouring rain, Erin had no problem navigating the slippery streets.
As she pulled up to her school in Downtown Brooklyn and dismounted, she said she didn’t mind being soaking wet.
“I have an extra pair of pants,” she said, sounding like a seasoned cyclist as she bounded into the building.
Stephen Nessen
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