WA bike safety program goes statewide

Riding a bike for Miles Romain feels like “the moment you jump through the air right before you hit the water to go swimming.” For Sofia Hernandez Rivera, “it’s like running but your legs don’t hurt so much and you don’t run out of energy.” And for Preston Ortega, “it’s pretty nice when the wind blows on you.”

For other Gregory Heights Elementary students participating in the nation’s largest statewide bike education program, it’s “kind of weird but also kind of good,” the seat is uncomfortable to sit on and riding is “pretty nerve-wracking because you always feel like you are about to fall.”

The program, called “Let’s Go,” is run by Cascade Bicycle Club, the nonprofit organization known for hosting the annual Seattle-to-Portland ride. It teaches students how to ride a bike, and also reviews road bike safety, pedestrian safety and how to navigate mass transit.

It is funded through the Climate Commitment Act. That act, signed into law in 2021, supports the state’s efforts to limit carbon emissions and invest the proceeds in green climate projects. An effort to repeal the act and its carbon market is on the ballot this election year.

Cascade has been running youth bike education in Seattle Public Schools since 2014 and Edmonds public schools since 2016. But now, with state funding, the program is expanding. This school year, Cascade is bringing “Let’s Go” to Spokane, Tacoma, Bellingham, Highline, Everett and Vancouver, and 14 small school districts served by the Association of Educational Service Districts (AESD).

Over the next decade, the program is expected to expand widely, aiming to reach 90% of Washington public school students. Cascade is starting at the schools with the highest needs, with the goal of improving health, safety and equity. 

Schools are identified as high need based on criteria such as their population of students on free and reduced lunch, whether students have suffered from environmental health disparities, or if the schools are in areas with high crash rates involving pedestrians and bicyclists. 

“Kids are always asking about the program,” said Olga Niculita, who has been a physical education teacher for 10 years at Gregory Heights Elementary in the Highline School District. “It is cool because it is like an introduction to driver’s education for them.” 

In the gymnasium at Gregory Heights, third graders rode bikes from one end to the other, stopping whenever Niculita held up stop signs or a large poster board with a black car on it. They practiced looking left and right at the stop sign and navigating a car on the other side of an intersection. 

The lessons run for about three weeks. Materials, training and a fleet of bikes and helmets are provided by Cascade to physical education teachers. 

Adaptive bikes are available for students who have difficulties balancing or have behavioral challenges or low physical fitness abilities. 

About 60% to 70% of her students know how to ride a bike or have a bike at home before the program starts, Niculita said. 

“I just want them to be safe on the road,” she said. “It’s so important.”

The state transportation department is projected to receive $216 million to fund the program for the next 16 years. 

Niculita said the program will have big benefits. “We are shaping our next generation, and how they are going to be on the road.”

About 30% of Seattle Public School elementary students are walking or biking to school, according to Seattle’s annual travel tally. 

For parents too, the program helps build their confidence to send kids out on a bike to school. And the hope is to build an instinct in families to always look for transit and bike options when they arrive in a city, wherever they go.

“We want to instill confidence and knowledge for kids to be bikers and pedestrians throughout their lives,” said Sen. Marko Liias, D-Edmonds, who sponsored the law that funds this program. “So that as they move to different communities or different parts of their life that they have these foundational skills now and they know that biking is an option.”

This story has been changed to give the correct number of small school districts served by Association of Educational Service Districts participating in the “Let’s Go” program.