Allied Arts Bike Bus organizes ride to highlight road safety — with the Mayor in attendance

Yesterday, the Allied Arts Bike Bus (A2B2) organized a ride to raise awareness about road safety for children — and to give Oak Knoll parents and kids a chance to discuss their concerns with Mayor Jen Wolosin, who participated in the ride (yellow vest) and stayed for conversation and coffee at the school.

Emails one of the organizers, Matthew Rascoff: “This is a timely issue in Menlo Park, as the City Council will be discussing the Middle Avenue bike lane project at the next two meetings. It is so important that our cycling community show up at the 2/14 meeting — via Zoom or in person — and make public comments.

“I hope many will join me in supporting the removal of parking on both sides of Middle, to permit wide enough bike lanes for a parent and child to ride together side by side (they will do this anyway to protect more vulnerable riders), or two kids together (as middle schoolers headed to Hillview tend to do). Removing parking reduces the risk of getting “doored”, which accounts for a large fraction of crashes.

The Allied Arts Bike Bus was launched last year to encourage a safe (and fun) route to school for children (K-5th) in the neighborhood, one of the furthest from Oak Knoll. Seven families, with 11 kids collectively, meet promptly at 7:40 am and take turns biking to school in a single-file formation that’s modeled after a bus.

The “bus” has three volunteer parents for each shift, getting the group’s target 4:1 kids to parent ratio — with one as the driver, one as the caboose and one keeping the middle in line.

Photos showing the ride as it got organized and at Oak Knoll School by Matthew Rascoff (c) 2023