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Gold Ridge Elementary institutes Project Bike Smart
Story written by Rebecca Garrison, Executive Director of the 50 Corridor TMA.
Gold Ridge Elementary School Principal David Frankel has a one-word answer as to why he and the school's PTA instituted Project Bike Smart to their fifth grade students: traffic. In the summer of 2015, Frankel contacted the 50 Corridor Transportation Management Association for assistance.
"The TMA has implemented active transportation programs at both Sunrise Elementary and Navigator Elementary in Rancho Cordova since those two schools first opened their doors," said Rebecca Garrison, Executive Director of the 50 Corridor TMA. "When Principal Frankel and PTA parent Hanh Xiong approached us about bringing Project Bike Smart to Gold Ridge, I knew we had to find a way to make it happen."
Garrison worked with the PTA, the Sacramento Air Quality Management District and the City of Folsom to build the $10,000 funding source needed for Project Bike Smart. "I was amazed at how comprehensive the bicycle education program provided by Elle Steele and her LCI team was," said Frankel. "Students learned and mastered a range of safety practices from scanning and merging to lane use, right of way rules, and much more. The differentiated approach of instruction for beginners through advanced students matched students to the instruction they needed."
The parent volunteers and the members of the LCI Team who worked with students over the two week course noted that all students made huge progress and dramatically improved their proficiency in biking safely in the community. The Project Bike Smart program was patterned after a program developed by the North Natomas TMA where their program tackles at least four elementary schools each year.
More than 90 Gold Ridge students completed the 10 hours of bicycle education which included classroom instruction, blacktop handling skills and on-the-street riding.
"At the start of the program, the students were wobbly on their bicycles and had no concept of road rules," said Steele. "By the end of the program, they could scan, signal, and choose proper lane positions while riding, and recite the right-of-way rules better than most adults."
Steele acknowledged that it's a lot for fourth-graders to learn - most critically, how to keep themselves safe!
Fortunately, the neighborhood around Gold Ridge is more bicycle friendly than most. "Our school was built to be the hub of the neighborhood," said Principal Frankel. "Increasing safe cycling to school will improve the quality of life in the neighborhood, reduce congestion associated with drop off and pick up, and hopefully connect families and students better."
One Bike Smart parent volunteers has already formed a mini bike group to ride to school together each morning.
"The most common response to youth bike education programs from parents is that they would love to let their kids ride but are too afraid of the traffic dangers," said Steele. "That's ironic because their solution is to drive their children instead, which creates more traffic. There are always many misconceptions about how bike riders should behave. As the students go home and share their experiences and knowledge from this class, parents should begin to see that their children can be trusted as responsible bicycle riders and that there are other options that driving everywhere. We do a lot of un-teaching the improper behaviors from both the students and their parents, like stressing to never, ever ride on the wrong side of the road."
And while Frankel is thrilled about the newly educated and skilled cyclists returning to their normal 5th-grade curriculum next week, traffic is still on his mind. "I'm looking forward to seeing how many more students ride their bikes to school over the coming months. We would love to secure on-going funding for this program next year so we can continue to address our traffic concerns and strengthen safe routes for students on bikes."
Click here to see the Project Bike Smart video!
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