All over Portland this week, bike bus leaders showed up to help families and students get to school on two wheels. It’s a local revolution that has packed school bike racks, inspired thousands to hop on bicycles, influenced city politics, and shows no sign of slowing down. Behind all the excitement are volunteers who wake up early to meet families in the street and lead the weekly rides to school.
Overlook neighborhood resident Nic Cota doesn’t even have a child at Beach Elementary School (not yet at least, his son is one), but that hasn’t stopped him from leading the school’s “bike train” every Friday morning (this one’s called a bike train in keeping with its original name from when it first started in 2010). With the front box of his cargo bike full to the brim with swag (funded by a Metro grant), he rides to a meet-up spot at North Rosa Parks Way and Concord every Friday at 7:30 am.
“We all good with Daft Punk? That’s what the people voted for,” Nic calls out to the kids and parents who’ve shown up. I stuck a mic on Nic when I arrived and didn’t tell him to say anything. What I captured (listen in the video below) is mostly him offering words of encouragement, thanking people for showing up, and giving away free stuff. Ask any Safe Routes to School advocate and they’ll likely tell you the same thing: never underestimate the power of free goodies.
“Does anybody want a pennant? I still have plenty of spoke reflectors. Who needs a granola bar?! I’ve got spoke cards,” Nic calls out as folks gather around. “If you ever need a light, let me know.” As Nic rummaged through his bin, he pulled out an extra bike lock, bike maps, and other odds and ends. “It’s whatever I can do to motivate,” he said.
This is happening on street corners citywide as bike bus fever grips Portland.
Folks like Nic make it easier for people to give cycling to school a try. Between installing spoke reflectors and pennants on bikes, he made sure to meet new arrivals since making people feel welcome is key.
When it was time to roll, bells rang out and the size of the group swelled as families hopped on from side streets. N Concord is a neighborhood greenway, which means most drivers expect to see cyclists and these large morning groups have become so common they’ve been normalized and accepted by all but the meanest drivers. Following sharrows like breadcrumbs south on Concord, and benefitting from diverters and safer crossings that encourage car users to stop and yield at cross streets — the Beach Bike Train chugged its way to a large row of bike racks outside the school.
As parents fussed with locks and school supplies and kids dashed off to class (after grabbing one last free raspberry granola bar of course), Nic was peppered with greetings and questions. One mom approached and said she was new to biking. She asked Nic for bike shop recommendations.
“This is our first bike ride,” the woman said. “Thanks for coming,” Nic replied. “We do this every week.”
And just like that, another Portlander was welcomed into the cycling ranks.
— Tag along with Nic and the Beach Bike Train in the video below.
Thanks for reading.
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Nice write-up! I love the Beach Bike Train- my daughter rode it and I have lots of neighbors that use it. I like the Bike Train metaphor better than the Bike Bus.
Have they done any with any of the other 8 school districts that serve Portland? Or just PPS schools?
I think there are a couple in Beaverton, and I know of several walking school buses in East Portland districts.
Who is “they”?
The All Powerful Bike Bus Lobby
Nic Cota’s bike bus efforts are a great way to promote active transportation for kids in Portland. But it’s hard to overlook the contradiction in his leadership role with BikeLoud PDX—an organization that has opposed clearing homeless encampments from school routes, even when those encampments pose real safety risks.
Let’s be honest: open drug use, public nudity, aggressive behavior, and even public masturbation are not things any child should be exposed to on their way to school. Yet this is the reality for too many families—especially in lower-income and communities of color. Kids in more affluent, leafy neighborhoods don’t face these same conditions. When advocates oppose clearing dangerous encampments, it’s often the most vulnerable kids who are left to deal with the consequences.
Promoting biking and walkability is important—but it must go hand-in-hand with ensuring safety and dignity for allstudents. Supporting compassionate, humane solutions for the unhoused doesn’t mean we should accept unsafe conditions around schools. Children deserve clean, safe, trauma-free routes—regardless of their zip code.
Do the readers of Bikeportland deserve a comments section without threadjacking?
Easy there, Matt — no need to come out swinging like a galah at sunrise. Peter raised a fair point, and just because it doesn’t fit neatly into a feel-good narrative doesn’t make it “threadjacking.”
If we can’t talk honestly about safety around schools — especially for kids doing it tough in less privileged areas — then what are we doing here? Supporting bike buses and calling for clean, safe routes aren’t mutually exclusive. Pretending they are just shuts down real conversation.
Civic pride means celebrating the good and grappling with the hard stuff. So maybe give Peter a bit more credit — he’s not trying to hijack anything, just making sure we don’t gloss over the full picture. Fair go, yeah?
“come out swinging”? The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
And this is absolutely threadjacking. Look up any definition of it.
Of course you would try to deny it. You’re one of the biggest threadjackers on this site.
I had never heard the word “threadjacking” before, but thanks for sharing it. I will start using it to delete comments and consider banning users who continually do it. To be clear: If someone is passionate about something and they bend a thread to that cause, I might allow that depending on the context. We are all guilty sometimes of turning things into what we care about. But, if it happens all the time and comes out of nowhere to the point of jacking a thread, I’ll just delete the comment.
Alright, I’ll bite — but let’s keep it civil.
Calling Peter’s comment “threadjacking” misses the mark. He raised a direct concern about the safety of children biking to school, which is completely relevant in a thread celebrating bike buses. The fact that it makes some folks uncomfortable doesn’t make it off-topic — it makes it important.
Peter didn’t derail the conversation — he added context. Ignoring the very real conditions some kids face on their routes to school in the name of “staying on topic” isn’t just short-sighted, it borders on wilful blindness. If we only allow applause and avoid discomfort, we’re not having a conversation — we’re curating a brochure.
And Jonathan — with respect — your mention of deleting and banning over “threadjacking” sounds more like a slippery slope toward silencing dissent than maintaining productive dialogue. You’ve built a community that’s respected because it wrestles with complexity. Let’s not flatten that into an echo chamber.
We can cheer for bike buses and talk about what’s not good for our kids getting to school.
Angus,
Thanks for the feedback about how I moderate this forum. I have never and will never make decisions on “avoiding discomfort,” I have zero history of silencing dissent, and I have no interest in hosting an echo chamber. I warn about threadjacking with eyes wide open and you will have to trust my judgment in how I moderate around it.
+1 for “galah at sunrise”.
Oops, sorry for hijacking the thread!
What an extreme reaction to a story intended to lift us all up. Yikes. Yes, we all want our City’s children to have a clean and unfettered trip into school. Let’s hope that means that there aren’t people on the streets that can otherwise be finding support in a shelter or receiving services they need. Work is being done each day to address this in a human way vs. inhumane sweeps.
Please don’t “sweep” the amazing community-focused actions of Nic, in with a broader critique on the state of our streets. We need to improve all things at once, and our bike trains are a net positive for Portland.
When you clear the encampment, it will just pop right back up, but lets keep using recourses to accomplish literally nothing.
Instead we could put those resources into getting the unhoused to be re-housed.
We still need to clear camps. If they pose a hazard to children, they must be cleared. If they come back, we clear them again. If they choose to locate somewhere that does not pose a hazard to children, then maybe they won’t be cleared so quickly.
Hey Peter! Not sure I fully grasp what’s happening here or what you’re accusing (is the vulgarity adding to your point?), but it sounds like your blanketing an opinion I don’t have and haven’t fought for. Maybe you’re thinking The Street Trust? Or you’re getting your wires crossed with this 2022 letter headed by The Street Trust and co-signed by quite a few non-profits in response to Mayor Wheeler’s ordinance related to high-crash corridors?
Whatever the case: I hope we can understand that blanketing everything an organization has supported as the same as the views of just one person in that org supports is wildly misleading, facts aside…
Nic,
Is this the letter you were talking about?
https://bikeportland.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Response-to-Emergency-Declaration-on-sweeping-camps-FINAL.pdf
I couldn’t get your link to open, but I came across this one dated Feb 4, 2022, signed by Oregon Walks and a bunch of other orgs — including BikeLoud PDX. Just want to make sure we’re looking at the same thing.
I get that it’s not always fair to assume someone personally agrees with everything their org signs onto. That said, since you’ve been (or still are ?) the secretary of BikeLoud, I’ve got to ask — are you saying you personally don’t agree with this letter?
From what I’m reading, it basically calls for shutting down all major Portland arterials to vehicles so that unhoused people can camp more safely on them. That seems pretty out there — surely we can improve safety and address homelessness without taking that approach?
Keen to hear where you stand.
Cheers,
Angus
A lot has changed since 2022. The political needle in Portland has definitely swung back towards the center, and many people who may have supported letters like that in 2022 would sing a different tune in 2025.
Yeah I get where you’re coming from—there’s definitely a shift in how people feel. Folks are bloody fed up walking past someone passed out on the pavement or seizing up outside a café without blinking. That sort of thing’s just become background noise, and it shouldn’t be.
But if you look at who’s actually getting voted in, the pendulum hasn’t really swung to the centre—it’s tilted even further left. You’ve got DSA-backed councillors getting up, a bloke like Keith Wilson as mayor who seems more soft-touch than reformer, and county commissioners lining up with the JVP crowd. Meanwhile, more centrist voices—Gonzalez, Mozyrsky, even Sam Adams—are getting brushed aside.
So yeah, people might be tired of the chaos, but when it comes time to vote, Portland still sticks to its progressive roots—maybe even more so than in 2022. It’s a weird kind of disconnect: lots of grumbling, but not much appetite for real political course correction
Thanks again for the write up! It’s all really powered by kids and families who show up! I also cant express how much gratitude I have for the PPS staff who work day and night for these students, who are also responsible for drop-off and can’t regularly attend the train. They’re the real heroes! Getting even a single school like Beach running everyday is nothing short of a miracle. So at the end of the day: to have folks support the bike train/bus or just commit to driving just one day less to school: it’s a huge win!