By Alyssa Koomas, MPH, a lifelong cyclist and parent of two young PPS students.
I help lead the bike bus for our neighborhood school and it is pure joy. It’s energizing to see kids on their bikes, empowered to take over the street, ringing their bells and bouncing to music as they roll into school. And yet it took me years to let my own kids ride independently, because what every parent fears happened to us.
Three years ago, our preschooler was run over by someone driving an SUV while biking with my husband on a neighborhood greenway. The driver tried to pass, my son wobbled, clipped the side of the car, and was pulled underneath before the vehicle could stop. He was rushed to the hospital where he stayed for five awful days. His pelvis and ankle were fractured, his legs badly scarred, but he survived and slowly healed. That felt like the greatest gift of our lives.
For a long time afterward I carried crushing guilt and fear. How could we have let this happen? Through my insurance representative I heard that the driver was “outraged” we let a child ride on the street. Part of me felt the same. Weren’t we supposed to protect him? We wanted our kids to learn to bike because we know it builds confidence and independence, but that day on the greenway had the exact opposite effect. Why did we think it was safe?
The truth came only after listening to other families who had lost children to traffic violence. The problem isn’t that we “allowed” our son to ride. The problem is that our streets are still designed with cars first and everyone else second. Walking or biking should not mean gambling with our lives. Children, walkers, and riders of every age deserve to take up space on our streets and to be protected while doing so.
Portland has the foundation for this. Our network of neighborhood greenways is supposed to give priority to people walking, biking, and rolling — often linking schools, libraries, and parks. On paper they sound perfect for families. In reality they feel like any other side street, filled with cut-through drivers using them to save a minute or two. The lack of stop signs even encourages drivers to choose them. My husband assumed a greenway would be safer for our kids. It wasn’t. I can’t really call what happened to my son an “accident,” because it’s actually just what you’d expect when you only have the perception of safety.
“When 50 kids ride together, families feel brave enough to join. Yet on the days without a bike bus those same families disappear, because greenways alone don’t feel safe enough.”
Actual protection requires infrastructure that prevents cut-through driving altogether. Diverters and modal filters are cheap, proven tools that reduce traffic to only local residents. If neighborhood greenways are to live up to their promise, they must be places where fewer than 500 cars a day are allowed. These streets cannot be marketed as safe while they remain a convenient bypass for drivers. Bike buses show us the power of safety in numbers. When 50 kids ride together, families feel brave enough to join. Yet on the days without a bike bus those same families disappear, because greenways alone don’t feel safe enough.
Today, after years of effort, my son is a confident rider. But I still insist he stays to my right during the bike bus. I dream of the day when I no longer need to anxiously hover, because the greenways truly belong to those they are meant to serve. A day when he can ride off with the pack, joyful and carefree, the way every child deserves.
— Alyssa Koomas
