Let me paint you a picture.
The other day as my family drove past the protected bike lane on Othello in South Seattle, my 13-year-old daughter said, “There should be separated bike lanes like that everywhere. Why don’t we have more of that?”
(If I could bottle and sell the feeling I had in that moment I could retire tomorrow.)
This kid has heard me rant about bike infrastructure her whole life and has never had a thing to say about it. So, what’s changed?
Well, she attended Black Girls Bike camp last month, offered by Young Women Empowered (Y-WE), in partnership with Bike Works.
As any parent of a teen can tell you, they don’t fully believe what you say until they experience things on their own. I can yap at her about urban planning until I’m blue in the face (and have, lol), but she didn’t really get it until she had biked the roads of South Seattle herself.
My daughter’s relationship with her neighborhood shifted overnight. She understands now that the built environment is the result of decisions made by people, and that those decisions directly impact her safety. She’s gone from passenger to cyclist, and she has the new-found road awareness to prove it.
This is how the future of biking is built. Youth bike camps (and year-round programs) teach not only riding skills; they create future advocates and activists. In fact, a Rutgers study of four New Jersey Schools found that students who rely on active transportation as young people are much more likely to continue utilizing active transportation as they grow older. And as we know, cycling isn’t one of those pastimes people have to retire from when their knees get popcorny in their 30s.
Bike Works has three more camps this summer, and at the start of the school year, we resume our bike education programs in every high school in Southeast Seattle, plus South Shore K-8 and Chief Sealth High School. Would you help us keep building the future of cycling with a donation of any amount that is meaningful to you?
My kid is one of thousands of kids who have participated in Bike Works programs through the years, and thousands more to come. Thank you for helping us get more of Seattle on two wheels. See you in the bike lane.
In community,
Chelsea Alvarez
Bike Works Development Director