Detangling cities from the automobile will be essential if Canada is to achieve its climate goals, road safety targets and develop more liveable urban spaces. As municipalities wrangle with entrenched car-cultures, initiatives across the country are demonstrating how starting with youth can build a new multi-modal generation.
Vancouver’s Greenest City 2020 Action Plan affirms its goal to make the majority of trips on foot, bike, and public transit.
The city has undoubtedly made progress in its active travel agenda, expanding and extending greenways, developing cycle parking services and investing in public bike share.
The numbers are going in the right direction. The volume of people commuting to work by bike doubled between 2006 and 2016; nonetheless, we are nowhere near the critical mass required to achieve modal shift targets. Although more than half of all trips in the city are under 5 km, over half of these trips are currently made by car. Indeed, ‘doubling’ of cycle commuter traffic may sound impressive, but when you realize this is still less than 3% of trips, the veneer of progress dissipates quickly.
Maintaining modal shift means prioritizing youth
Meeting Vancouver’s targets with the “commitment and creativity” outlined in its action plan, means starting from the bottom, with the city’s youth.
Repeated evidence demonstrates that instilling environmentally conscious behaviours in formative years, helps establish life-long relationships with sustainability. Unless the city is able to encourage and facilitate a youth transport transition, the next generation of Vancouverites are destined to remain shackled to the combustion engine.
However, there is a problem; at present the stats don’t look good. Just 4% of children in Canada cycle to school, and perhaps even more alarmingly, over half of kids living less than 5 minutes away from school drive there.
At OCB, we firmly believe in the power of youth engagement, and the value active and sustainable transit brings, not just to young people themselves, but their families and wider communities.
So how will we get kids on bikes… and keep them pedaling?
OCB, alongside other initiatives in Vancouver and neighbouring municipalities are turning the next generation of transport users away from the car.
Getting them riding
The first step is getting youth on bikes to begin with, however, equipping young people with the skills, knowledge and confidence to ride is no easy task. Although many have the privilege of parental guidance, others rely on external support networks.
This is where HUB’s ‘Everyone Rides Grade 4-5’ comes in, providing elementary students with the education and training to ride their bikes to and from school.
“We are offering a safer way for students to get daily physical exercise and move within their community,” says Lorraine Smith, Program Manager.
The course, which is Led by HUB Cycling and funded by the Ministry of Transportation and Transit, is delivered by partners across the province to elementary schools.
As part of the course, students participate in a lesson on safe cycling, learning fundamentals such as parts of the bicycle, helmet and bike inspections, how to ride responsibly, and other key knowledge.
Students then practice on-bike skills using simulated traffic scenarios around the schoolyard, challenging their bike handling skills and road knowledge through drills, games, as well as shared pathway and intersection scenarios.
It is not just a Vancouver initiative. The program, now in its 5th year, is being delivered in South Okanagan, the West Kootenays and a range of other areas across BC, with the goal of reaching 142+ public schools and over 14,200 grade 4 and 5 students across the province.
HUB is also adapting its resources to expand the program to reach beyond metro areas.
“We have just developed a teacher-led program we piloted in Powell River and Campbell River, and hope to expand to other small communities,” reports Smith.
Keeping them riding independently with mechanics skills
Learning to ride is just the first step in developing a cycling culture amongst young riders. Getting to grips with cycle mechanics is equally critical. Uncertainty around bicycle maintenance is a major deterrent for many young riders.
To help tackle this, Our Community Bikes’ Youth Bike Club is a free drop-in bicycle mechanics program, which has been in operation across Vancouver for over 5 years and aims to empower youth with riding and mechanic skills and build confidence and community around biking.
Every first Tuesday of the month, young people from across Vancouver convene at the OCB shop and learn vital skills required to independently maintain and service their own bikes. Students can either build a bike for themselves (Earn-a-bike scheme), learn how to repair and maintain their current bicycle or partner with a Young Riders program to build a bicycle for a younger student.
“Bike club is a fun place to go each week to learn about how bikes work, meet people, and hang out! It’s a really nice atmosphere and everyone has always been super inviting and helpful. I’ve only been coming for a couple months, but I’ve learned a lot and plan to continue coming for a while!” says Leah, a Bike Club Participant.
This self-sufficiency is also critical for making cycling more affordable, not just for participants themselves, but their families too. To improve affordability, OCB also partners with MOBI (Vancouver’s public bike share provider) to coordinate the Youth Community Pass, amongst participants, further enhancing the affordability of cycling and the spectrum of options available.
Understanding multi-modality
Getting kids out of the car requires installing an understanding of the range of options available beyond the automobile, and opportunities for combining active travel with public transportation.
While many youth may be confident bike riders, they are not necessarily as canny when it comes to combining their bike with the bus.
Many bus routes in Canada are equipped with bike racks, and in Vancouver, all TransLink buses have bike racks (accommodating two bikes), attached to the front of the bus. Yet, how to prepare a bike before the bus arrives, communicating with the driver, using the rack’s support arm and keeping an eye on the bike while traveling are all important elements of this process, and require guidance when starting out.
Understanding this will be critical in extending the distances users and able- and willing to- travel by bike.
One scheme “Get on the Bus” is prompting a nationwide shift in youth engagement with public transport. The initiative, which was inspired by Kingston’s (ON) Transit High School Bus Pass Program offering complimentary bus passes and transit training to students in Grade 9 to 12, works with municipalities and school boards across the country to do what it says on the tin… get kids on the bus!
“It is about making sure young people know their options beyond just jumping in the car,” says Dan Hendry, Co-founder, Program Director.
With support from the Small Change Fund the scheme seeks to hook young people on public transportation at an age when they develop transit independence, initiating travel habits and cultures which continue into later life.
The training involves not just navigating buses with bikes, but understanding how to identify insecure situations to ride safely.
“Keep in mind, these are 16 year olds, an age when the car and the cultural cache it brings is a right of passage,” says Hendry.
“So we need to get the public transit mindset in beforehand, inserting multi-modal thinking in their formative years. Give them a good experience on a bus and, while they might not pick it up straight away, over time the change will happen.” he continues.
The scheme is now in action across other municipalities in Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Alberta.
Where can we go next?
These initiatives are a good start, but at present they reach just a fraction of the youth population required to produce a comprehensive modal shift towards active transportation. Large schemes like the Active Transportation Fund may be building up infrastructure, but without targeted interventions like Everybody Rides, Youth Bike Club and Get on the Bus, they will not inspire the next generation of transportation users.
Are you a municipality, school or youth club looking to support youth into biking? Check out these resources for further information and guidance.
- Get on the Bus provides useful information and advice on their website.
- Durham region’s toolkit is an ideal basis for educational resources on cycle safety
- British Columbia Cycling Coalition hosts a series of information pages on safe cycling which can form the basis of youth engagement
- General tips for getting kids riding are available on BikeClub.com
OCB coordinates a range of activities for youth. The OCB website is a resource for those seeking more information and ideas about possible formats for similar initiatives.