(Photos: Madi Carlson)
This question is for everyone! Portland Public Schools started back up this week and this affects many more people than just biking parents like myself. Did you see anyone biking to school and get a warm, fuzzy feeling? Did you bike to school or bike with a kid to school?
We had a great first day of biking to school, despite my not doing a heck of a lot of planning and figuring out how long things would take. One of the things I like about biking for transportation is being able to just wheel my bike outside, hop on it, and go…versus walking to a bus stop at an appointed time. This works fine for making a trip to the grocery store in the evening or using Google maps’ time estimate when I’m riding somewhere alone using the most direct route, but getting kids to school on time for the first day ideally gets some practicing and number crunching.
While I’m not excited about the extra chunk taken out of my workday biking to two different schools with start times staggered by an hour, I’m jazzed about the new, longer commute. We’ll see more people on bikes, hopefully experience more street improvements, and find more free bookshelves on the side of the road.
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This first day my middle schooler came along to the elementary schooler’s drop off (1 mile) so we could continue straight to middle school (3 more miles). This got us to middle school much too early so we killed time at the closest bakery, which is much better than rushing and worrying about being late.
I thought the drizzle would prevent many classmates from biking, but we were in good company — the racks were completely full at Woodstock Elementary and we arrived to cheers for biking to Hosford Middle School, where we joined many other bikes at the racks. We saw several families biking in the opposite direction as we traveled between the two schools and we dinged our bells hello.
Arriving early to each school (I didn’t realize elementary school starts 15 minutes later than it did last year, oops) meant we didn’t experience the full effect of car drop-off traffic, but we got the brunt of it at pick-up time. I think the first day probably had more parents picking up by car than the average day will have and I’m eager to experience less packed streets.
We’d love to hear what you experienced on the streets yesterday.
Please share any first-day-of-school thoughts and stories in the comments! Thanks for reading.
Remember, we’re always looking for people to profile. Get in touch if it sounds like fun to you. I’d especially like to feature families of color so please get in touch or ask friends of color who bike with their kids if they’re interested in sharing their stories. And as always, feel free ask questions in the comments below or email me your story ideas and insights at madidotcom [at] gmail [dot] com.
— Madi Carlson, @familyride on Instagram and Twitter
Browse past Family Biking posts here.
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Glad to hear your Son is OK! Near-misses are traumatic and sometimes life altering. We need more safe spaces for people, especially kids just trying to get to/from school. My middle-schooler cannot safely get to his school by bike, but walking to/from the school bus works just fine. Kudos to kids and their parents who are dedicated to riding.
Oof! I’m glad he’s OK. And as a parent of younger kids it’s good warning to keep up with the incessant safety conversations. Happy new school year!
I was riding home with my 6-year old daughter on our tandem after picking her up from school yesterday and a driver pulled over to the right and stopped (this is a very quiet residential street) so we went around to their left. As we got parallel with her, she started driving again, getting in front of us. She then slowed down in front of us again and then pulled a U-turn.
All of this was very slow, we weren’t in danger, but the whole time, I felt like a nature documentary narrator – “You see, she doesn’t see us. She’s pulling ahead of us again, we’re in her rearview mirror, but you can see she isn’t using it. She has no idea we’re here. Now, see she’s turning in the middle of the street right in front of us? That’s a u-turn and technically illegal – she still hasn’t seen us.”
After we passed, my six-year old said, “Hey! She works at the school, she’s the crossing guard!”
haha, oh geez… at least her heart seems to be in the right place – wanting to help kids cross streets safely…
Our first days were good but also super easy, because we are only a couple of blocks away from our elementary school and there are no difficult roads to cross.
I actually have a question: is there a minimum age for children to use the road in Oregon? I assumed that not to be the case but was not sure when a friend asked me.
I don’t think so. And I don’t see anything in ORS 814.400: Application of vehicle laws to bicycles that could be interpreted as so.
Whether you’ve got kids there or not, Tubman is a hot mess at the bookends of the day so far.
So far, the response to these backups is driving/biking into oncoming lanes to get around the backups. This makes me nervous about bypassing Flint at Tillamook.
“even if he thinks I said “okay” (he didn’t), he should still always check himself. It’s his own body to protect. Never trust someone else’s assessment (including the driver facing us that was trying to wave us through!”
I’m struggling getting this through my 8-year-olds head. He’s started a new school that’s much further than his previous school and soon we’ll be riding the 1-1/2 mile to the bus stop. He got a ton of bike commute time riding to work and back with me this summer, so I’m hoping it goes well. Winter will be a challenge since he’s always been a fair weather rider. Just have to get him dialed with lights.
I rode my bike too and from school when I was a kid. 4 blocks each way in 2nd, 3rd grade and 6 blocks in 4th through 8. When I started at Benson I rode in fair weather from the vicinity of Lombard and Greeley. when the weather turned in October it was by bus. I also had an evening paper route that I delivered by bike in the 3rd through 8th grade. Finished that in 1958. BTW from home I always took Greeley, Interstate, Broadway and 16th while LLoyd center was being built. I went up Williams, Ainsworth,Greeley going home.
Of course, we have to teach our kids to look out for themselves and the lecture you gave your kid is one I’ve given to mine. However, the person who caused this situation was the landscaper who corked the intersection. Illegal move that nearly resulted in someone getting hurt.
We biked over to Madison High this morning and noticed the bike racks were fuller than I’ve ever seen them. Can’t say right now whether it’s anything more than the the magnificent weather, but I hope so. Disappointingly, my youngest’s new elementary school, Rose City Park, had very few bikes in its racks. Could be an opportunity for some Safe Routes to School programming.