How a local organization is working to get more Calgary students biking to school

For many years, bicycle theft was a problem outside of Forest Lawn High School in southeast Calgary.

It’s something Deputy Principal Mark Anderson has heard from students that prevents them from cycling to school.

But now that the school administration has teamed up with Youth en Route, they have seen a massive change.

“We were able to modify these bike racks to make them more appropriate and safer, and we were also able to bring them to the school,” he said.

“The students here, with the financial support of Youth en Route, have actually made … bike racks that we can use.”

Since then, there have been no more thefts, Anderson said. They’re even considering adding a third shelf inside the school because they’re running out of storage space.

Bike theft is just one of the problems Youth en Route is trying to solve. The Calgary group is working with area high schools to find out what barriers students face when cycling—whether it’s storage, road safety or learning to ride a bike—to help them feel empowered to ride a bike drive to school and beyond.

Laura Shutiak founded the group in 2021 and has now worked with around 10 schools in Calgary, one in Lethbridge and one in Red Deer. She says she was inspired by her own children who didn’t want to ride their bikes to school.

“It was geeky, nerdy, not something they wanted to do,” she said in an interview The home track.

“It made me think about how powerful it is for kids to be independent and go where they want to go, and we need to change that mindset in high schools.”

Shutiak first contacts each school and conducts surveys to find out what is stopping students from choosing to cycle. Then they begin targeted programming, teaching students about on-road hand signals, the importance of helmets, and proper mapping of bike routes.

Shutiak says they have provided either full or partial class sets of bikes and maintenance kits to about six schools.

“We created fleets of bikes that teachers use in physical education classes,” she said. “Often these classes start in the parking lot or in the field where the kids are literally learning how to ride a bike.”

They have also given some surplus bikes to school officials for distribution to students.

Youth en Route is now conducting school surveys to better understand how successful the program is.

Anderson says he’s noticed the difference, with rotundas full of bikes every morning. The school also uses the bikes to support students who are new Canadians.

“Our English learning program has embraced the bikes, and we’re taking classes and learning language… by using the bikes,” he said.

The school has launched competitions and giveaways for students who ride bikes several times a week. They also want to start a program for bicycle mechanics.

“We try to do whatever it takes for all of the kids as the needs arise,” Anderson said.

“It gives me more confidence”

Still, some students in the city aren’t quite ready to make the switch.

Bettiel Woldeghiorghis is an 11th grade student at Bishop O’Byrne Senior High School. She doesn’t have a bike, and even if she does, she’s not entirely comfortable with the idea of ​​riding a bike to school, preferring the bus instead.

“My house is too far… I think it’s about 20 minutes to my school,” the student said, adding that she would like to see more dedicated bike lanes in the city so she can feel more comfortable cycling to school.

She is part of a leadership class that works with Youth en Route. They spent the spring studying helmets and concussions, road safety, bike repair and wayfinding. They then rode their fleet of bikes to local elementary schools to share what they had learned.

Her classmate Justina Obateru also helped conduct these lessons. Obateru also doesn’t bike to school because of the extra time and unpredictable weather in Calgary, but she says she’d like to bike more.

“I find that when I ride a bike I feel a lot more proud and I get to test my knowledge riding a bike based on what I’ve learned … and it gives me more confidence,” she said.

According to Anderson, previous surveys have shown that most students still drive to school, but trends are changing.

“I expect some feedback on our work so far to make them feel more secure… They don’t worry about where they park their bikes,” he said.

Youth en Route recently received $50,000 from the Alberta Ecotrust Foundation’s Climate Innovation Grant Program. It provides funding for projects that protect and conserve Alberta’s ecosystems and watersheds and meaningfully address climate change.

According to Shutiak, the funds will be used to build and improve bike racks at schools and buy more bikes and helmets so they can expand the program even further.

“These under-two-kilometer, three-kilometer stretches are the low-hanging fruit,” she said.

“Kids want to do the right thing. They want to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, but don’t necessarily know how to do it. And so we want to give them support and answers to help them make that choice.”