School Cycle Bus
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Why do only 5% of Irish children cycle to school and how can it change?
Only about 5% of Irish kids cycle to school every day. Well, one idea trying to change that is the school cycle bus. It is a group of primary school kids led by adult volunteers along a set route with more children joining at stops along the way. Well, more and more towns are starting them. And as Regan Hutchins found when he joined the Skibbereen cycle bus in County Cork, it is a very good, fun way to start the day.
So every Thursday everyone joins up and meets at Cost Cutters at 8.20 and we all cycle to school so it's practically like a bus but just with loads of people that are cycling.
My name is Orla O'Sullivan. I'm a teacher in Skibbereen Community School and I come here to help out the cycle bus.
We're here now just at a garage kind of at the edge of the town and this route will take us through the town in various different spots. We're picking people up.
So the route starts out here, then we all cycle as a group back in towards Skibbereen, the roundabout, and we go into the next estate to collect a few more people. Then we cycle up through Skibbereen, we go along the bypass to the primary schools, and then everyone goes to wherever their destination is.
Everybody ready? Yes! We're going to be cycling to as normal, okay? You're in behind me, so staying on the left-hand side. Nice to see everybody.
Who are you?
I'm Ruth, Ruth Bullough from CycleSense, one of the volunteers and marshals. Myself and Katie Mann set up CycleSense in 2006 and our mission really was to help support people cycling and get more people out cycling. it isn't that safe for children to cycle to school on their own. So this is one way of doing it for the community. You can think of it as a moving cycle lane if you want to. So the idea is that the children are on the inside, the marshals are on the outside, and we move as a group. So it's a response to that.
A response to how dangerous the roads are.
Yes.
There is such a big crowd of you. And it is a long time since I got on my bike and cycled to St. Patrick's Boys National School in Skibbereen. But that's what I'm doing now.
What
reaction do you get from other drivers when you're on this cycle bus?
Very exciting actually. The drivers love to see us out on the bike and they start honking their horns and waving mad. It's great community spirit.
And I can see there the bus driver giving a big wave to the woman in front of me. Dodge this bus. There's loads of buses. Who are you cycling to school today?
My daughter, yeah. She loves it.
Do you think that parents are frightened of seeing kids on bikes in general?
Well, I was just actually saying it there. It's fine when you're on the big cycle bus because there's so many of them all cycling together and the cars kind of stay behind. But if you're cycling on your own just with her now, I'd kind of tend to stay on the path because it's so dangerous. The cars just speed past you, you know.
Now we're cycling round the roundabout past the playground and we're going to go to the courthouse where people from the boys' school, the girls' school and the girls' school will get off the bus.
We're on radio!
We're on radio!
Alan Foley, you're the principal of St Patrick's Boys National School. It's one of four national schools in Skibbereen. There is a statistic that 5% of children are cycling to school, which is very low. How does that tally with your own figures
here? It would be there or less, I think. We can kind of see the reasons why people are getting the habit of driving their children everywhere. It's a mindset and there is definitely more danger on the road with the amount of cars and the speed of cars.
What's the population of St Patrick's
now? We're 200 pupils in the school at the moment. And we had definitely between 20 and 30 of our boys doing the cycle bus, which is great. So I would be a big advocate, really, it's been super for our school.
Is that still fifth class, that building, that room in there?
Yeah, that's our class.
That was fifth class when I went to school. And then that's sixth class? Yeah. Yeah, nothing's changed.
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