Shawlands bike bus in Glasgow joins Barcelona inspiration

Families from Glasgow joined others from Germany, America and across the UK in Barcelona for the first global meeting of bike buses.

The bike bus is a simple idea with wide-ranging impacts: children are encouraged to cycle to school in groups, led by parents or teachers, and benefit from improved health and wellbeing alongside increased confidence on their bikes. 

Camille Warrington was one of the first of five families who became involved in the Shawlands bike bus after parent Gareth Johnson texted them all a video from social media of the Barcelona Bici Bus wheeling its way through the Spanish city.

She said: "I showed the video to my son Keir who was eight at the time and that was our inspiration.

"I think the video was quite inspiring as an image of collective action. I don’t think I fully knew what I was doing but as soon as we started the bike bus it was very powerful in ways that I don’t think I fully understood.

READ MORE: Scottish rise in cycling needs work to be maintained

"There was a power in acting collectively and in taking up space on the road and seeing our children taking up space on the road. It was joyful and that feeling was quite contagious and I was hooked."

Appropriately, the Glasgow bike bus was set up in 2021 just before the COP26 climate summit in the city and, from the first group of five families, it has grown to become a firm fixture used by dozens of children and their families every Friday morning.

Glasgow City Council also stepped in to help with the development of an innovative piece of equipment that allows the lead rider in the bike bus to control traffic lights along the route.

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This means the 20 minute journey - which traverses a busy intersection - is safer from passing cars and other traffic. 

Ms Warrington says the bike bus, as well as being good for children's health and wellbeing, sends a "powerful message" to the wider community and the wider city in terms of what is needed for safe transport opportunities.

Jordi Honey-Roses, an academic based in Barcelona, is researching bike buses around the world and said the activism element of the schemes is an important part of why they work and how they sustain themselves.

Mr Honey-Roses, an urban planner who has been based in Spain for the past two years, described bike buses as "the dream" in helping to change how children view the cities they live in and their feeling of ownership over the streets they travel.

In Barcelona several small bike buses were set up in parallel in various areas around the city but there were concerns the scheme would fail to take off because the roads are so busy but, conversely, the system has proven extremely popular. 

It now moves 700 people a week in seven districts.

Mr Honey-Roses is working with a research assistant to understand the scope and characteristics of bike buses and what makes them successful and sustainable.

While his own children walk to school, he volunteers with different groups as part of his research and has been attempting to visit each of the schemes around Barcelona.

He said: "Right now we have a lot of anecdotal evidence. Teachers who run bike bus describe pupils coming to class in a better mood; the kids involved build communities; there’s also the physical health benefits. 

READ MORE: This Glasgow bike bus gives hope for the future 

"But we’re interested in whether bike bus can change the long term cycling behaviour of children and of parents: does bike bus serve as a catalyst or spark for more cycling for the whole family, not just the children?"

The Barcelona researchers have had responses from 109 bike buses to their survey and no responses yet from a further 45 but the information is the most complete survey of global bike buses so far. 

The academic said: "I was a professor at the University of British Columbia for eight years and there was a bike bus that would go to campus and it was very practical, it was about parents getting their kids to school fast.

"What I see in Barcelona is very different. It's about wanting to transform the space, about wanting to make a claim on the city, about being very activism-oriented. 

"I had a hypothesis that this new bike bus driven by social media was much more activist driven and less practical, less functional, although so far the survey results don't show that clear story.

"But, while researchers choose our questions, we don't choose our answers." 

The international bike bus summit discussed how groups can organise, what their aims, motivations and impacts should be, and signed a joint statement called the Barcelona Declaration. 

The meeting was also attended by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.

In Glasgow the Shawlands bike bus is very much leading the way but other groups have begun to spring up around the city, although not all of these have been successful. 

Ms Warrington said: "It was fun but a way of challenging the wider city to make streets safer for cycling generally.

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"I’m amazed at how it’s sustained and it’s grown and I don’t understand it really. There are some bike buses that have started and they have not sustained so it’s not inevitable that you start a bike bus and it will be a success.

"Shawlands has been the result of an enormous amount of passion and effort from people like Gareth and Catherine who have led it. 

"But I also think as well it’s been collectively owned as well and that’s really significant."

For the young people who take part the bike bus is a source of fun and joy - but it can also be emotional for the adults who watch their children grow in confidence by taking up space on the roads.

Ms Warrington said: "I cry regularly. I know people who have cried just watching us. And we say, ‘Bike bus, why does it make us all cry?’

"And the closest I can come to understanding why is because of how it disrupts the everyday order of things and the normal order of cities in which children are the bottom of the pecking order and cars are at the top of the pecking order – and it feels really powerful for me to see that."

Emotions, the Shawlands parents said, were particularly heightened in Spain when seeing children riding alongside others from America, Spain, Germany and elsewhere.

Social media has been an important way for international bike buses to support one another and make links so while the groups were meeting in person for the first time, there was a sense of familiarity.

Ms Warrington added: "Our family went to Spain because, as a mum, I was thinking this was a brilliant opportunity for my children, showing them that this thing they do every week connects them to children in other countries.

"I felt really energised by it in terms of bringing some of that energy back to Glasgow and encouraging us to grow here.

"One of the things I felt was just enormous pride in seeing my children, one of whom only learned to cycle six weeks ago who’s five and in primary one, cycling through the streets of Barcelona."

The Barcelona bike buses are on a scale unseen - so far - in Scotland but the Glasgow contingent was able to share information about the traffic button and talk about the support from authorities they have received. 

Mr Honey-Roses added: "One thing that people who bike bus in Barcelona notice is how quiet the space becomes, you hear bells, you hear laughing but you don’t hear any traffic and it’s such a peaceful, wonderful moment. 

"I love the acoustics, the sound of the city, you’re putting kids in the centre of the city and, just for a moment, have that be their space. 

"It’s so emotional. It’s wonderful."